Robots for Reading

Making reading fun for children in the age of video and multi media is a challenge that many parents find daunting. Overall the average child is reading less books today than an average child from two decades ago. At the University of Wisconsin Madison in the US, scientists are trying to bridge the gap between technology and reading more books with the help of a robot.

Minnie, as the robot has been nicknamed, is a reading buddy for children. This companion robot is currently designed to do a two week reading  program with children. They cover about 25 books with a wide range of reading skill and story complexity. The child reads out loud to Minnie who is an interested listener who throws in appropriate statements like “oh wow, I’m really scared” at appropriate parts of the story being read out.

The children all liked reading with the robot. Specially when they finished reading out the book loud and Minnie would summarize the plot appearing to be very thoughtful. Minnie even suggested books that the children should read out next based on previous choices. The science project was quite successful at suggesting books that the children genuinely enjoyed reading out loud.