Robot friend can encourage kids to read

Washington: Scientists have built a robot that can serve as a reading buddy for kids, recommending books and reacting to stories as a human listener would. The robot, named Minnie, helped children be more excited about books in the two weeks of reading together. “After one interaction, the kids were generally telling us that, sure, it was nice to have someone to read with,” said Joseph Michaelis, a graduate student at University of Wisconsin- Madison in the US. “But by the end of two weeks, they're talking about how the robot was funny and silly and afraid, and how they'd come home looking forward to seeing it again,” said Michaelis. Researchers believe companion robots will soon be a fixture in homes, and they wondered if those robots could serve as social learning companions for children. They designed a two- week reading programme including 25 books representing a range of reading skill and story complexity, and programmed Minnie to be an interested listener. The children in the study read aloud to the robot, which could track their progress in the book and react to the story — every few pages or so, especially during important moments in the plot — with one of hundreds of preprogrammed comments. “The goal is to try to make it as genuinely conversational as possible. If you were reading a book to me, and I was surprised, I'd say something like, “Wow, I didn't see that coming!” Michaelis said. “When a scary part of the book happens, the robot says, ‘ Oh, wow, I’m really scared.’ It reacts like it would if it had a real personality,” he said.