Google Read Along Online

[Sheebaajmal03]

Hi All Hope your doing well, was exploring the Google ReadAlong on the mobile phone and I found it very effective. While it is easy to assign a good number of books to your learners in the Google Classroom, it could not read in Urdu and this was a while back while I was exploring Read Along resources in the Google Classroom.

With the online link available, learners can create their own profiles and signup with Google Ids. They can select the books to read and even select to read in Urdu language as well. They can select their avatars as well. The accent of the virtual tutor Diya is different but still it would help the learners a lot in improving their reading, speaking and comprehension skills. They can even share their performance with the parents. While reading the learners are asked questions about the content and with every correct answer the scores get added to their profiles. With an incorrect answer they are asked to try again. They can click on Diya avatar and the virtual tutor would not only read the word in English but also read it in Urdu.

Imagine a class of 25 to 30 learners where a teacher has to ensure that all readers can read well, speak well. It is a very difficult task. It would be even more difficult if the teacher is responsible for 3 to 6 sections with 25 to 30 learners each. With ReadAlong it can be managed well and even teacher can keep record of the learners performance. The learners receive badges when they achieve a particular reading score. 

While exploring a little more I found out the story books are divided into different categories, these include stories about concepts linked to math and science, for the concept of tall and short, counting animals etc. There are stories available for grade 1 to grade 4 learners. There are stories related to families, friends, animals  and funny stories. 

The learners can select from either English story books or Urdu story books. I did not see the Urdu story books in the Google Classroom. But I found some interesting Urdu story books on the online Read Along platform. It provided data on learner performance, how much time the learner spend of reading and how many words did the learner read correctly. There was a book in Urdu on even Covid 19 in English and the learners could read how to protect themselves and others during Covid. Imagine having such readily available digital resources in the classroom to keep learners aware about such diseases. This would be a very interactive learning experience as compared to a traditional reading experience where only teacher can give feedback to learners and all learners have to wait for teachers feedback. Read Along has made it easy for the teacher as well as for the learners. Where learners do not need to wait for the teachers feedback but get immediate feedback by the virtual tutor online, they can read as many times they want, practice the exercises and move on to reading new books and thus improving speaking, reading , listening and comprehension skills. It is empowering learners in ways which was not possible before.

Read Along is a wonderful resource be Google for Education and I think it can transform the teaching and learning landscape. It can be easily integrated in both Urdu and English in schools. 

Happy exploring !

Regards and prayers