By Carolyn Lengel | volunteer
Dear friends and supporters of same-language subtitles for literacy,
Imagine looking for children’s books in an Indian village and not finding a single one. In rural India, it's all too common for children to have nothing at all to read. But since over 700 million Indians watch television and there are nearly 200 million smartphone users, no books no longer has to mean no opportunities for reading.
For 20 years, PlanetRead has been using the idea of same-language subtitles (SLS) on television for mass literacy, and if you've followed our work, you know that our research demonstrates that this regular, inescapable reading practice is helping people of all ages become better readers.
A few weeks ago, we learned that PlanetRead had won the Early Grade Reading Innovation Challenge (EGRIC) from READ Alliance and USAID. With their support and yours, we are expanding our SLS work to integrate AniBooks--animated digital stories with SLS--into the schools and lives of Hindi-speaking children in Grades 1-3, or ages 6-10.
Our sister company BookBox has been creating AniBooks to teach reading and language learning to children for some time, and we are in the process of identifying Hindi stories that will provide maximum benefit to the children in this program. We aim to deploy our content using Pico and other low-cost, low-energy projectors; computers already in the children's schools; mobile phones and smartphones, when those are available; and televisions already in homes in rural areas. As the program ramps up, we will be tracking the kids' reading progress through an app which will be accessible on mobile phones and tablets.
We are extremely excited about this new plan to leverage our SLS and technology experience to help children who are just beginning their education. READ Alliance and USAID are helping us bring the dream of full literacy for everyone in India a step closer to reality, and we are grateful to them and to you for continuing support!
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