Google's 'Read Along' Learning Tool Now Available on the Web

pcmag.com:

Google is rolling out its Read Along learning tool for the web.

The app, which is supposed to help children learn how to read, has been exclusive to Android since it was released in India in 2019. (It was called Bolo at the time; Google changed the name for its global launch in 2020.) Now it'll finally be available to kids without Android devices.

"With the web version," Google says(Opens in a new window), "parents can let their children use Read Along on bigger screens by simply logging into a browser from laptops or PCs at readalong.google.com(Opens in a new window)." The site works in Chrome, Firefox, and Edge; support for additional browsers is "coming soon."

Read Along has children read stories—which are curated by Google and feature varying subject matter and levels of complexity—to a "reading assistant" called Diya that "listens and gives both correctional and encouraging feedback to help kids develop their reading skills."

Google says all of the audio processing required to enable this functionality happens on-device; the recordings aren't supposed to be sent to its servers. More information about the kinds of data the company is collecting via the web version of Read Along is available via its privacy policy(Opens in a new window).

Google says more than 30 million children have read over 120 million stories via Read Along since the app's debut in 2019. (Which suggests that many kids, or their parents, read just one story before they stop using the app.) The company will release more stories later this year.

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