Presented at the mEducation Alliance Symposium in Washington, D.C., 15-16 October 2013

1. “M-­‐Reading
to
Children”
Leveraging
mobile
reading
to
promote
and
advance
early
childhood
literacy

2. UNESCO’s guiding question: How can countries best
leverage mobile technologies to support the
Education for All goals and enrich learning?
Current focus areas include mobile learning policy, mobiles for teacher
development, gender equality and literacy

3. Worldreader’s mission is to eradicate illiteracy.
Books for all.
Young children in the classroom using
E-readers
Everyone and everywhere using
mobile phones.

4. Worldreader Mobile : An existing solution already at scale.
Key Metrics
304,000
My
books
Search
Top
10
Total readers/month (June
2013)
Children’s
EducaCon
Career
22 MILLION
Romance
Health
Language
Pages read/month
Cloud
based
library
of
over
2,000
free
books

5. Reading is reading is reading.
This works.
(tons of research shows
more reading=better
reading, more books
=more reading, ergo
more books = better
reading.)
This works.
This works.
Worldreader M&E has
demonstrated that e-readers
in classrooms lead to reading
more and reading better.
UNESCO/Nokia/WR research
shows mobile readers
read more.

6. Project Mobiles for Reading Goal: To understand mobile
readers and determine key success factors for mobile reading
initiatives
Research Questions
Target Countries
1. Who are mobile readers?
a. Gender
b. Age
c. Education
2. Why are they reading on their mobile?
3. What are their attitudes towards reading?
4. What are their reading habits?
a. Do they read more on mobile?
b. Do they use mobile to read to
children?
5. What do they want to read on mobile?
a. Which genres?
b. Which languages?
c. Do they want local content?
6. What are the barriers to mobile reading?
7. What predicts intentions to read on
mobiles?

7. Multiple data inputs provided a portrait of mobile readers and
helped UNESCO articulate policy recommendations.
4330 surveys to mobile
readers in targeted countries
via biNu global research tools
In depth telephone interviews
with active users of
Worldreader Mobile
Mobile readers:
• Demographics
• Motivations/preferences
• Needs/desires
Mobile reading initiatives:
• Key success factors
3 months of data from mobile
readers
-search
-time reading
-top books -pages read
-menu clicks
Full report to be published by UNESCO in February 2014.

8. Key Research Insight: Large opportunity to impact young
children with mobile reading.
Do
you
read
books
and
stories
aloud
to
young
children
from
your
mobile?
Are
you
a
parent
or
caregiver
of
children
under
the
age
of
13?
29%
Yes
71%
33%
34%
No
No,
but
I
would
if
I
had
more
books
and
stories
for
children
on
my
mobile
33%
Are
you
a
teacher?
Yes
-­‐
Primary
9%
80%
8%
3%
Yes
-­‐
Secondary
Yes
-­‐
University/
other
Cercieary
No
Yes
(3075)
No
(1255)

9. Mobile readers want to use their phones to educate the young
people in their lives.
*from previous Worldreader
research on m-reading

10. Early Childhood Development: early years are key to building
literacy skills
• 0-4 years critical for literacy skills
• Gap created rarely closes
• Reading aloud to children key for
• emergent literacy
• language development
• promoting a love for reading
• Lack of reading in early years creates
word deficits that compound over time
Yet many parents and caregivers in parts of the
developing world lack access to the necessary
tools : books.

11. Early educational interventions have the highest ROI when it
comes to improving long-term quality of life for disadvantaged
communities.
• Currently less than 17% of African
children have access to Early Childhood
Care and Education (ECCE) services*.
This means that that majority of Africa’s
children lack the educational foundation
they need for later academic success and
overall well-being.
We want to change that.
*from
UNESCO
Global
Monitoring
Report
2012
Figure: Returns to a Unit Dollar Invested
(data from US)

12. Introducing a next generation Worldreader Mobile: created for
parents, caregivers and teachers.
• Create a new ‘build’ of WRM
o Low cost, using existing
back-end and architecture
• Fill it with best-in-class early
childhood literacy materials in
English and Kiswahili
• Share & promote it to parents,
teachers caregivers in Kenya &
Tanzania
• Measure the educational impact

13. Great content in English and Kiswahili
Utilizing our existing content library:
• I Know: Days of the Week, Faith Mwisho
Mountaintop Publishers
• Tusome Tuimbe Tukariri, Angelina D. Mdari
Kenya Literature Bureau Children
Sourcing new culturally and linguistically appropriate materials:
• Picture books with a variety of illustrations (for learning to
“read”
• Pictures
• Rhymes
• Colors, the alphabet, counting, animal sounds, shapes, etc.
• Simple, fun, interesting stories kids will ask to read again
and again
Guided questions for teachers, parents and caregivers to help
engage children in materials.

14. M&E: measuring the real impact on children’s literacy. "
Research Questions:
• Are more adults reading to children?
• What materials are most needed and used?
• Are children becoming better prepared to read and learn?
Three Assessment Groups:
• Control Group
• Treatment 1: Training and Public Outreach on R2C App
• Treatment 2 (optional): Training, outreach, and the provision of
mobile phones to target population
School Readiness Assessment: Basic language and pre-reading skills
3 evaluation periods: Baseline, midpoint, final

15. Large potential to scale with low cost per child.
End
Year
1
End
year
2
At
Scale
Parents,
teachers,
Caregivers
300
000
500
000
1
000
000
Children
impacted
600
000
1
000
000
2
000
000
Cost
per
child
Est.
$2.00
Est
1.20
$0.60

16. High Level Project Timeline
AcCvity
2014
Q1
Q2
Q3
2015
Q4
Q1
Q2
Q3
Q4
App
design
&
development
DefiniCon
of
content
needed
M&E
design/
sample
selecCon
Content
AcquisiCon
&DigiCzaCon
Baseline
evaluaCons
–
cohort
of
P1
students
in
control
and
treatment
villages
–
group
of
K
children
–
group
of
PK
children
Local
hire
&
training
of
project
manager
in
treatment
village
NaConal
launch
&
promoCon
of
app
to
target
audience
App
Store
PromoCon
Local
launch
–
teacher/parent
workshops,
local
PR
communicaCon
in
treatment
village
Focus
groups/interviews
on
ground
with
PTC
to
assess
use
and
what
materials
good/needed
Impact
tesCng
on
treatment
and
control
groups
Interim
report
with
results
data
Final
Impact
tesCng
on
treatment
and
control
groups
Final
report
with
results
data