Google Launches an Educational Website for Kids Learning to Read

Bradley Rhodes -

Google has launched a browser-based version of its Read Along app for kids who are learning to read. The website is currently in beta testing.

The Read Along website features hundreds of illustrated stories for several reading levels. After selecting a story, the kid starts reading into the microphone of a connected device. Read words are highlighted in blue, whereas mispronounced words are underlined in red. After you click on the underlined word, a virtual assistant named Diya pronounces it. Kids can also ask Diya for help in speaking words they don't know.

The site can be accessed in Chrome, Firefox, and Edge browsers, but Google promises to add support for other browsers like Safari soon.

Stories on the Read Along website are now available in English, Gujarati, Tamil, Bengali, Marathi, Spanish, Hindi, Portuguese, and Telugu.

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The tech giant also added new stories to the Read Along collection, which will be available later this year in both Android and web versions.

“In addition to the website launch, we are also adding some brand-new stories. We have partnered with two well-known YouTube content creators, ChuChu TV and USP Studios, to adapt some of their popular videos into a storybook format,” Google said in a statement.

The Read Along app for Android was launched in 2019 and has since been used by more than 30 million children who read over 120 million stories.