“My reading is magic" is a unique application to help improve reading skills in primary school children. Based on speech recognition technology specially adapted to childrens voices, this fun reading aid follows kids reading out loud in real time, detects the most flagrant errors and awards points according to reading speed, the number of mistakes and word difficulty. If a word is too difficult, the child can ask to hear it read out but no points will be earned for that word. Each story can then be retread chapter by chapter to try and beat the previous score of points. While this method is no substitute for tutoring by a teacher or parent, for a child with reading difficulties who needs regular practice, it does have the advantage of being much less stressful and can be a precious help for tired, busy parents struggling to find time.
How to get best results:
For the best possible performance, use a microphone built into headphones of the best possible quality, rather than the device microphone. When you add a new user, give the correct details about the user as they are important for successful voice recognition. The reading sessions should preferably take place in a quiet place with no television or music. When you create a new user, there are about a dozen sentences to read out loud. This is a very important step and should be carried out with help from a parent. The child (not the parent) must read the sentences clearly. If a mistake is made during reading, the sentence can be repeated by pressing the microphone icon. It is also possible to perfect adaptation to the childs voice by reading extra sentences in the "Training" section. If possible, use the same microphone as used for the initial training period for that user. When you first start using the application, and especially if you change microphone or room (with different resonance), you may need to repeat some words more distinctly, until the voice recognition adapts to the new surroundings.