Fostering Literacy For Kids With Special Needs
For the past ten years MightyBook.com, in Houston, Texas, has been creating animated musical books, cartoons, games and puzzles to help educate children with special needs.Special Education teachers from all over the world use these books to foster literacy learning in and out of the classroom.
“Special Education children have special requirements and we felt their needs were not being addressed. We wanted to produce books that give these kids a better chance of discovering how much fun it can be to learn to read, write and speak English”, says MightyBook’s CEO, Richard Eaves. “So, we took a medium that kids love cartons, and used the technology available to us to create animated books that grab and holds a child’s attention as they learn to read.”
Recent studies have shown the benefits of using technology to develop a comprehensive literacy curriculum including phonological awareness, word recognition, comprehension, spelling and most importantly the motivation to want to read. Furthermore, these resources can improve literacy learning for students with learning disabilities or mixed handicaps, at-risk learners, ESL students and typical students as well.
“The first time we attended the National Association for the Education of Young Children’s convention and saw the kids’ reactions, we knew we were on to something,” says senior partner Cliff Dew. “But what we did not expect was the overwhelmingly response and subscriptions we received from primary educators with typical students. Our biggest challenge has not been with the kids it’s been with the educators because this type of technology requires new ways of thinking about reading, writing and communicating. But given the chance, our books usually win them over. Now, countries and schools and from all over the world subscribe to MightyBook. Why in China they’re even using our books on cell phones.”
There are over 600 animated books, cartoons, games and puzzles to choose from and new books are added every month. All have moving pictures and are read aloud by professional actors, complete with award winning music, sound effects and voices. The books come to life while capturing the imagination of young readers. It’s easy for kids to follow along because words highlight as they’re read aloud. And when a child comes to the first grade knowing how to sound out words, they have a huge head start.
MightyBook is now available through Keen2learn
