Milton Keynes (UK), June 2011 - Researchers at The Open University have created a free "app" to help parents teach their children to read. "Our Story" has been designed to be used on mobile devices, such as the iphone or iPad. The app incorporates research findings and theory to provide the experiences known to develop the abilities and motivation for reading.
Parents can easily create their own personal picture books, stories, and games and in doing so support vocabulary development and reading skills.
David Messer, Professor of Education in the Faculty of Education and Language Studies, explains, "Research has indicated that building a story based on a child's own life has been proven to increase their confidence and social skills. What Our Story does is build on this to produce an app that provides an easy-to-use means for parents to take their own photos and ideas and create personalised story books and games for their children."
The app has been developed by a team of child psychologists and education specialists at The Open University including Professor Messer, Natalia Kucirkova, and Dr. Denise Whitelock. Using Our Story, parents can create stories for their children by putting pictures, sounds, speech, and text on "ecards" to build storyboards that can be based on anything from real life events and trips, to stories that focus on family and community.
Trials have shown that young children enjoy both listening to a story using the app or taking part in the creation of a story.
The app is suitable for ages one year and upwards and can be adapted to various levels of a child's ability. This makes it flexible and a sensitive way to target each child's needs and differences.
"Our Story" is free to download from the Apple store.
