Worldwide literacy

The foundation of learning is the development of literacy skills. The National Reading Panel in the United States in reviewing the research on developing reading skills and has provided a list of essential elements in teaching people to read. This list includes phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, and comprehension. The RAND Reading Study Group developed a program for research and development program in reading comprehension. Voice activation provides a great leap forward in the ability to associate speech with words. If a young child can speak and the computer transfers that speech to printed words then the child can associate his known vocabulary with the printed word. The author briefly describes a computer program he has developed to aid children in learning literacy. The program is designed to be highly tutorial and interactive with young children using their natural speech patterns as the computer interface.