The Book Village App

Although South Africa has made some progress in literacy over the last 20 years, in the 2016 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) South Africa ranked last out of 50 countries for reading comprehension. It was found that 78% of South African learners could not read for meaning. And, according to The National Income Dynamics Study – Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (NIDS-CRAM), COVID 19 can erode the learning gains made in schools over the last two decades. Furthermore, it is estimated that COVID 19 has resulted in between 50-75% of a year of lost learning amongst foundation and intermediary phase learners in resource constrained schools (Mohohlwane et al, 2020; Mohohlwane et al, 2021; Shepherd et al, 2021).

We have worked in South African township schools for almost 20 years helping children learn to read and we have identified the main problem, which is a distressing lack of human connection, during the learning process. There is a shortage of adults and youth to help facilitate the reading process for young learners — to listen to children read, to aid them in pronunciation, and ensure that they can read for meaning. Classrooms in low-income areas are extremely overcrowded. Most primary school teachers are much too overextended and technology is rarely, if ever, used in the classrooms.  In the townships near Johannesburg where we work, primary school class sizes are always larger than 50 children, and often have more than 75 children in them making individual attention for children rare or absent. Parents/guardians in these under resourced communities are not usually able to help children read at home. Such large class sizes and the resulting lack of human connection as well as the lack of digital connection in the learning process are found throughout South Africa and Africa.

Book Village will leverage technology to improve the literacy deficit
among children growing up in South Africa and Africa.  The Book Village app will extend the resources of one adult in a classroom full of students with the help of live, volunteer tutors who can access the app from any distance. Children will be able to receive live, individualized reading tutoring from one of our carefully vetted  and trained volunteers through the Book Village App.

The App uses a levelled reading series and we have identified the AWEH! readers by Oxford University Press as the perfect fit as they are relatable to young African learners.

Our programme will be implemented in non-fee-paying schools in poorer communities across Africa to help at-risk children master their reading skills
and set a solid foundation for lifelong learning.

We conducted a small trial of the Book Village App at a school in the Johannesburg metro area in 2021.  We are currently developing the second version of the app, and will conduct a large-scale trial during the second half of 2022.

The scalability of this programme is truly limitless; once we’ve completed the pilot study and updated the app based on the feedback received, we intend to expand our app to well-governed, low-income primary schools throughout the area. Our goal is to implement the Book Village app in 80 schools within the next 5 years, thus affecting around 100 000 primary school learners. With the help of partners and funders and the positive results received from the app, we anticipate exponential growth and hope to affect 1 million students throughout Africa in the next 10 years.

Book Village is a digitally human solution that addresses the key facets underpinning the reading crisis in South Africa and Africa.  The Book Village app is a smart, digital creation that connects children and volunteer tutors to engage in live, interactive , encouraging and supportive practice of reading skills, using the AWEH! reading books from Oxford University Press. Book Village also enables children to discover the joy of reading through providing access to a large digital library.

Children and tutors are connected via voice only.  Both children and tutors see the same screens, but the tutors have additional instructions and a timer on their side.  Both tutors and students have a touch UI so that both can see where they are looking.  There is no video, and children may only log in under the supervision of a facilitator for safety purposes.

On first logging in, children complete a reading assessment with a tutor that will determine the correct reading level for them to start with.  The correct reading level book is automatically assigned to them via the app.  This formal assessment is repeated each term to monitor their progress. Continuous assessment is also carried out in the app, and any words that the child couldn't read or needed help with are recorded in the app and recapped at the end of the session.

The Book Village app makes use of an admin dashboard that facilitates the selection, screening and management and reporting of the tutors.  It also allows for the management and reporting of the students .  The sessions are recorded and stored for safety and research purposes and this is also managed through the admin dashboard.

The schools where the Book Village App is used will have all requirements provided for them including internet, devices, headsets and a facilitator.

The Book Village App has been developed to help children in the poorest and most underserved communities in South Africa and Africa learn to read.  Children in these low-income communities do attend school, but their schools are typically very overcrowded. With an imbalanced teacher-to-student ratio, even the most admirable teachers are unable to provide individualised support to students. The teaching methods used are very old-fashioned and ineffective.  Students often learn to read by copying words from the blackboard into a workbook, which hardly provides the skills necessary to build confident learners. Ultimately, this cycle of overcrowded classrooms, overextended teachers, and underwhelming lessons leaves hordes of children who fall short of passing their exams. It’s common for township children to repeat the same grade twice and then get promoted to the next grade, even if they’re unprepared.
The second major issue plaguing literacy rates is a deficit in school funding — across the board, township primary schools are grievously underfunded. Primary school teachers often enter the field with a limited skill set and little or no access to vital educational tools. The PIRLS (2016) results have helped expose how initial teacher education programmes fail to produce graduates sufficiently equipped to teach reading skills. In many townships, contrary to more affluent communities where parents can help fill the void, there is no guarantee that parents or other care providers are available at home to help with reading. Capacity building for teachers in these communities is deeply needed; bridging the gap between technology and literacy is necessary to
improve pass rates, student achievement, and ultimately help bring these children out of poverty.

Beyond simply crossing the boundary from illiteracy to literacy, we wish
to help children learn to read well enough that they will read for
enjoyment. Years’ long studies have shown that reading for pleasure in
youth is the greatest factor for both cognitive improvements and social
mobility over time. Further, a 2002 research study conducted by the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development concluded that
reading for enjoyment is more important for children’s success than
their family’s socio-economic status. Academic achievement is certainly
valuable, but we believe that the tool that will break the cement mold
of generational poverty for many young South Africans will be learning
to read well and to read for enjoyment. Through the Book Village app we
hope to positively impact the reading abilities of 100 000 South African learners in low income schools within the next 5 years and up to 1 million African learners within the next 10 years.

Sarah Bradfield has worked as a volunteer in the outlying townships of Johannesburg for the past 20 years.  Initially she taught English and reading in Diepsloot, and then opened a library in 2015 at Cosmo City Primary 1 school.  Since then Sarah has been teaching reading to children at the school.  She realised that the problem with reading in African township schools is massive, and that the educators and the poor communities they work in, really need help.  So the idea of Book Village was formed to use technology to connect motivated, encouraging and caring volunteers to learners so that they might receive individual reading tuition.

Lauren Jansen joined Sarah in 2020, and has been working in Cosmo City Primary 1 with Book Village since then.  Lauren is a talented foundation phase educator and has gained a lot of respect from the educators within the community. 

At every stage of Book Village's development we have consulted the educators of the school, the school management team as well as representative members of the township communities.   We have been encouraging them to test the app and give feedback to us which we use for further development of the app.  We have also met with the parents of the children who are benefiting from the programme and have taken their needs into account.

We are a small, passionate, driven team and we would love to join the community of impact-minded leaders that you could introduce us to.  We feel that these interactions would help us to grow our ideas and to generate new ideas to improve reading and education in Africa.

We feel that we, and the communities we serve, would benefit tremendously from any mentorship, coaching or strategic advice as we take Book Village to scale across South Africa and Africa.  We anticipate that we might need regulatory advice as we expand Book Village into other African countries.

We realise the value in the large amount of data we collect through the Book Village App, and whilst we are evaluating our data, we are sure that this data could be useful to others working in the field of education. Connections that we make will allow for the most beneficial use of this data.

The success of Book Village lies in part in attracting and training motivated, caring and dedicated volunteer tutors.  We would really like to gain exposure in the media and at conferences to get our message out into the world.

Whilst many think, or sense, that the problem with reading in Africa is a lack of access to books, we have found that the underlying cause of illiteracy is a lack of human connection in the learning process.

We have developed an app that allows a digitally human solution to the reading crisis.  The Book Village App connects learners to tutors anywhere in the world, giving children an opportunity to benefit from individual reading lessons from trained, motivated, caring volunteers and to learn at their own pace.

The Book Village App also collects accurate data on each child - their reading levels and progress are accurately and continuously measured.  Accurate data about reading is difficult to obtain from the South African education department, and we believe that the problems with literacy are massively understated.

We are also collecting and storing voice data of the reading sessions as we feel this will certainly have value for future research and might spark new ideas.  We plan to incorporate machine learning into our research in the future to determine the best tutoring practices and learner assessments. 

We believe that in becoming fluent readers, children will perform better in every school subject and in life and this can only benefit the communities that the children come from.

To take the Book Village App into 4 additional schools next year and to expand into 80 schools within the next 5 years, affecting about 100000 young learners.

We have strong relationships in the Cosmo City community and have identified 4 additional schools in area for Book Village to expand into.  Through our partnerships with other NPOs we have identified 80 schools throughout South Africa with good governance that would benefit from the Book Village app.  We have plans to expand the Book Village app into other South African and African languages, thus extending our reach even more.

We have identified that many young learners do not have the necessary pre-reading skills and so we are working to expand the Book Village app to include a pre-reading programme.  We are currently conducting a trial of our pre-reading programme with the grade Rs and grade 1s at Cosmo City Primary 1 School in South Africa.

Being able to read well enough to read for enjoyment in childhood is one of the greatest predictors of success in life. This is why we have incorporated the digital library into our solution. 

Book Village aligns closely with the UN Sustainable Development Goal 4, to ensure inclusive and quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

The lack of foundation literacy skills in many young people prevents them from obtaining quality education in school and limits the lifelong learning opportunities for many, often resulting in inter-generational poverty.

Book Village wants to provide every child with the opportunity to learn to read well enough so that they might read for enjoyment as children.

We collect accurate data on each learner's reading level from formal in- app assessments when they begin the programme, and then each term after that.  We also collect data continuously in the app by recording each time the tutor clicks on a word that the child has difficulty with reading.

We collect the number of hours/tutoring sessions  learners have had. Their ages, school, school grade and gender.

We collect similar data for our volunteer tutors.

We have conducted a successful small trial at the school in 2021.  The results from this trial were very positive.  The young learners and tutors alike loved their reading sessions and the children were extremely focused and engaged with the tutors.  We will conduct a large-scale trial later this year where we predict a statistically significant improvement in reading levels of the children.

Through our work in the community and the strong relationships we have formed with it's members, we have identified various schools and education centres that we plan to expand the Book Village programme to. 

Book Village in collaboration with Basalt Technologies, has developed an app that connects learners to tutors using digital, real-time verbal communication.  Our solution uses the internet to connect tutors to students.  Students use tablets to connect to their tutors.  We are collecting and storing all the voice data from the reading sessions with a view to use machine learning to determine best tutoring strategies and reading levels.

The directors of Book Village have read and agree with MITs Diversity, Equity and Inclusion statement.

We are a small team at the moment, but will recruit people from the communities we serve, being mindful of diversity, equity and inclusion at all times.

Book Village is a NPC.  Half of the initial app development cost was funded by the developers, Basalt Technologies, and the rest by The Cloud's End Family Trust.

To fund further development Book Village will rely on several revenue streams:

1.  CSI spend.  In 2021 corporate social investment spend in South Africa was R10.3 billion.  Book Village offers companies an efficient and measurable way for their staff to volunteer and for them to donate time and money to improving education in Africa.  Book Village has been approached by one of the large banks in South Africa and by other corporations.

2.  Crowd funding from our volunteers.  We have a large pool of motivated, caring and giving volunteers.

3.  Licensing of the software to other fee-paying schools or to other non-profit organisations.

4.  Book Village is collecting large amounts of data, including reading levels and voice recordings of children learning to read.  This data could be a revenue stream or shared with partner organisations.

5. Book Village will make use of co-branding opportunities. For example, with Oxford University Press and their AWEH! levelled reading series. 

Half of the initial app development cost was funded by the developers,

Basalt Technologies, and the rest by The Cloud's End Family Trust. The equipment required at the school was donated by The Cloud's End Family Trust.

The salaries of the two full-time directors are funded by Ballistic Armour Technologies (PTY) Ltd.

Book Village were winners of the Injini EdTech accelerator in 2021 and received R5000.00 cash and coaching and support from their team.