CSIR launches reading app to improve literacy
THE Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has officially launched the Isinkwe reading app in a bid to assist the country to improve its literacy and reading capabilities.
The scientific teams at the council are hoping the launch of their new app will turn the tide against the dwindling reading and literacy levels in the country.
Georg Isaac Schlünz, the Isinkwe project manager at the CSIR, said the app was created to target learners with early literacy difficulties, dyslexia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and/or some form of visual impairment.
He said it was piloted with special needs schools in the Western Cape, with engagements between the council and the Department of Basic Education still under way to introduce it to other provinces.
Schlünz said the team saw the dire need for such an app due to the fact that research had shown that as many as 50% of learners in South African schools battled with disorders such as ADHD, and 2.7% of learners were visually impaired or blind.
“The app is called Isinkwe, the Zulu word for a bush baby as the animal has big eyes and ears, which fits in with our slogan: ‘Empowering eyes and ears’, as we hope to equip learners to use audio renditions of the textbooks, homework or exam papers they have to read daily."
“The benefit of this app for visually impaired learners, in particular, is that the texts uploaded onto it are now also highlighted as the audio plays to enable the learners to follow along with the text.”
According to the council, the app’s technology was available in all 11 South African languages and made possible through a previous product that the Voice computing research group had commercialised called Qfrency text-to-speech.
Isinkwe uses a three-step process, in that Schlünz said they adopted the EPUB3 format used by the publishing industry which allowed them to embed the audio along with a text in a book as well as the timing information which enabled the synchronisation and highlighting features it possessed.
Once the app has been downloaded, users are able to upload their documents and synchronise it with their audio and language preferences.
In the absence of recordings, the app utilises the Qfrency technology to provide computer-generated audio which customers can select the characteristics for such as using a male or female voice.
After that has been completed users are able to download the converted and synchronised document to the desired device.
It is currently available for android devices with IOS and windows capabilities to be added at a later stage.
Schlünz added that at this stage Isinkwe only supported reading capabilities, however, he said the team was due to look into introducing the writing feature in the future.