Google is most famous for web searches and its big-name apps like Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Chrome. Beyond its core products, however, Google casts a wide net developing and releasing apps that cover many different aspects of our lives. From cultural heritage preservation to online video game streaming , Google has a lot of apps that do a lot of things. We can now add Rivet , an app that teaches kids to read, to this ever-growing list of software. Rivet has just left the beta testing stage and is now available on Android smartphones, tablets, iPads, iPhones, and Chromebooks.
Rivet listens to kids read out loud and can even help with pronunciation
Google makes a compelling case for the need for an app that teaches kids how to read. The search giant points out that struggling readers are, “unlikely to catch up and four times less likely to graduate from high school. Unfortunately, 64 percent of fourth grade students in the United States perform below the proficient level in reading.” You’d be forgiven for thinking we can all read just fine, but it doesn’t appear to be so. This is why Google has developed Rivet, to help kids learn to read at a young age.
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Straight off the bat, Rivet has some very impressive stats, giving users access to over 2,000 free books split into categories like topic and reading level to help them learn to read. The blog post announcing Rivet’s release also promises that this number will keep growing as Google will continue to add books to it moving forward.
On top of the large library, however, as you’d expect from a Google product, Rivet has some very interesting tech-based features that will help it get the job done. The app can listen to children reading aloud and then offer visual cues should it hear them pronounce a word incorrectly. The app also offers audio clips so that the children can hear words pronounced correctly and makes the whole process of learning to read and pronounce words properly feel like a game.
Another good Rivet feature is the Follow Along feature. When activated, Follow Along will read out full pages on a selection of books , just like a teacher would in class or a parent at home, and the child can follow the story via the words on the page.
Rivet is designed to give kids the ability to learn to read even if they don’t have somebody there to teach them. It does a good job of it too; the app helps when they get stuck and actively teaches them as they move up through reading levels.
The trouble is that the app only offers its teaching capabilities on a limited number of the 2,000 books in its library (for now). Not all the books have full audio support. Google is likely to work on bringing full support to more books in the future. If it can do that, it is highly likely that Rivet will help a lot of kids learn to read at a high level and develop strong reading habits.
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