At WhizRead, we’re dedicated to making reading fun, engaging, and rewarding. We want all children – children who speak English as a second language, children who are struggling to read, have learning difficulties or just learn differently, and even children who read well but want to improve – to have access to the tools they need to succeed. By providing interactive, multi-sensory tools that use Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques, we help young learners become more confident, independent readers and learners.
WhizRead’s mission is to provide a one-stop, multi-sensory and multi-modal reading and learning experience to all kids from kindergarten through high school. The WhizRead app enhances their comprehension ability by making the learning process “multi-sensory” – hear and view. WhizRead aims to level the playing field for all kids by providing the same learning tools to all of them. We want to make reading and learning, enjoyable, fun, interesting, and less arduous.
Why WhizRead?
Support Reading Comprehension
Comprehending what one reads is after all the purpose of reading. When a teacher provides a print out of a reading comprehension passage to all her children in his/her class, the children are seldom provided tools to ensure that they are comprehending what they are reading. The only way a teacher can assess if a child has understood what he or she has read is by just reviewing the child’s responses to questions at the end of the passage. But what if a student hasn’t understood properly? How can you make the children self-sufficient and what can be done to ensure that they all have the same tools?
It is also important that the child doesn’t leave his/her main activity (reading) and go look up the dictionary, search for images etc. to know more about a word or a phrase. This is where the WhizRead App steps in by ensuring that all children have the same tools that will enable them to comprehend what they are reading and use those tools while they are reading without leaving the actual reading activity.
Support Learning Difficulties
Similarly, for a child who has learning difficulties or just learns differently, just providing a reading comprehension passage is not sufficient. The question is what tools can be provided to support a child achieve his/her potential. The child needs to have multi-sensory tools to help him/her better comprehend what he/she is reading. Some like to be read out loud, some would like to see images, some others would like to hear sounds, and some would like a combination of these. These are the reading comprehension tools that the WhizRead App provides to the child. This way, words and phrases get imprinted more in a child’s mind and helps him/her comprehend the reading passages better.
Support English Language Learners
Children that are English language learners or learn English as a second language, or children that have moved to an English speaking country have a difficult time comprehending what they read. Words and phrases differ from language to language but looking at a picture or hearing a sound is universal. That is why having those tools available is perfect for children learning the English language.
Create A Level Playing Field For All Children
In a given society or even in a school, children come from different families that provide varying levels of support to their children in their learning process. The circumstances of each family are very different which in turn impact their ability to support their child’s learning process. Here again, the WhizRead App assists by providing the same reading comprehension tools to all children regardless of their family circumstances, creating a level playing field and making them independent and confident readers.
All In One Place
Typically, during the activity of reading, a child encounters many roadblocks along the way. Some of these are, not knowing how to pronounce, not knowing the meaning or definition of a word and wanting to know how the word is used in a sentence, wanting to see an image of a word or a phrase, wanting to hear what a word or phrase sounds like, wanting the passage to be read out loud, etc. The WhizRead app provides all these features to a child as he/she is reading, instantaneously upon a tap on a word or a phrase.
We’d love to hear from you! Contact us with your questions, feedback, and suggestions. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible.