Google Rivet Uses Speech Recognition and AI to Help Kids Learn to Read, Coming to iOS

Rivet, a new app from Google‘s A120 experimental product incubator, wants to help children struggling to read.

A new blog post from the tech giant explains that the app is designed to use technology to teach kids to read in a most intuitive manner.

Specifically, the app uses speech recognition and some AI to help kids learn to read since most young ones learn by actually speaking words out loud. Rivet then uses that to provide feedback and assistance, which also doubles as a tool for teaching kids how to pronounce certain words.

Rivet currently works on iOS and Android devices and offers more than 2,000 free books for kids to practice reading. The UI is kid-friendly and exempt from unnecessary buttons or menus. While reading, youngsters can swipe through pages and tap on any word to hear it out loud, and even find its definition and practice pronunciation, all in a very intuitive manner.

The app also features definitions and translations for more than 25 languages included in the app, in order to help kids — and especially non-native speakers — to better learn reading.

For the youngest readers out there, there’s also a “follow-along” mode in which the apps reads stories out loud, highlighting the words as it reads along. When a child outgrows this feature, it can easily be disabled so kids can read for themselves.



Plus, parents can track their kid’s progression through activity email updates and review the studying history in the app’s settings.

Rivet seems like a great way to teach children to read, but also to learn how to use a mobile app without messing with complex menus and lists. As the software is still in beta, we’re expecting to see more features and books added when the final version comes out.

Rivet is available now on the Google Play Store and the App Store for English language books for readers in Canada and the United States, among other countries.

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