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Bringing the Bottom Billion into Basic Literacy: How We Can and Why We Must
Author(s) -
Gottwald Stephanie,
Morris Robin,
Wolf Maryanne,
Galyean Tinsley
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
new directions for child and adolescent development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.628
H-Index - 59
eISSN - 1534-8687
pISSN - 1520-3247
DOI - 10.1002/cad.20225
Subject(s) - literacy , information literacy , computer science , mobile device , early literacy , discipline , focus (optics) , mathematics education , psychology , sociology , pedagogy , world wide web , social science , physics , optics
Abstract Close to one billion people in the world do not have basic literacy skills. A key challenge is reaching children in the midst of circumstances that make a traditional school‐based approach impractical. This chapter will describe a cross‐disciplinary, mobile technology approach to literacy education. The Curious Learning approach distributes research‐based, English literacy content on mobile devices to children without access to an adequate school. The software platform is equipped with data collection tools to measure usage patterns and literacy outcomes. Results indicate that regular access resulted in higher early literacy skills. Future efforts will focus on adapting this approach in the languages spoken in the homes of the children.