Image a two-year-old child, playing with a book and a pen. Child positions pen on house image printed on book, and book speaks out the word “House”.  And eventually child explores the book, gets to hear more and more words, sounds and sentences. What If you get to know your child’s book is re-usable? This magic has been made possible at footprints Pre School & Daycare, we have introduced Books that has a voice with the help of a pen which we call “Read-O-Stick”.

When the pen is placed over specially printed text on footprints books it activates the pre-loaded audio files, enabling the reader to hear the text. The Read-o-Stick Pen has data from toddlers till Upper kindergarten that it can read text, words, play rhymes for children, and instructions installed. The read-o-stick device is integrated with book sets that provide the child exhaustive learning.  Besides teaching the child words and sounds, the books also come with a whole lot of games that the child enjoys.

Given a choice wouldn’t you want to spend long hours reading to your little one? What better way to bond with the child as also to see his eyes light up with joy as he hears of the hero of the story who has set out on new adventures. Today, we have inadequate time to spend with our children to be able to inculcate reading skills. However, does it generate interest for children to choose to read books over toys? Read-o-stick enables curiosity for a child to explore the print and cultivate interest towards reading.

With read-o-stick pens you can not only ensure that the child spends his time gainfully but you can also set up him on his journey to be an independent learner. Effectively what you are doing with the read-o-stick pen is that you are jumpstarting the child’s academic progress and helping him develop critical early reading skills. The fact that they are fun to use makes learning a fun activity for the child.  With the help of Read-o-stick, footprints books turn re-usable, as the voice does enough to make the child explore words, pictures, sentences, concepts, newly every time it is picked up.

Read-o-stick is no less than a magical wand allied to the whole language approach and phonetics. Well, reading is a philosophy that stresses the importance of children thinking about their thinking, or being metacognitive. It focuses on children making sense of skills used in reading and writing, as opposed to just memorizing letter sounds and symbols. Through the process of visual learning, you would be surprised to see how much the child has picked up.

With technology having taken over most aspects of our lives, the one major fall out has been that our kids are increasingly getting addicted to their mobile phones and tabs. The read-o-stick and the book sets are a great way to wean the child off that phone and engage him in active learning instead. In fact, the encouragement provided by the read-o-stick for the child’s correct responses and the gentle redirection for incorrect ones, helps the child pick up a whole lot of concepts without even realizing that he is as much as spending time studying.

Besides picking up language skills, the read-o-stick pen and book sets also familiarise the child to important life skills that prepare him for the road ahead. There is only one word to describe the feeling when you see the child becoming an independent Reader as also enjoying this journey- “priceless”!

Purvesh Sharma