Worldreader supports reading programs in the United States and East Africa, in the past in West Africa, India, Latin America, and the Middle East. Our app, BookSmart, is free of cost, accessible to readers around the globe and offers over 3,500 children’s books in local and major languages.
We’re in the midst of a global learning crisis that predates the pandemic. According to the National Assessment of Education Progress (2022), roughly 65% of children in the United States cannot read or understand a simple story. 4th-grade reading scores are lower now than in 2017, with only 35% of students showing reading proficiency. Our work in the United States supports young readers, families, and educators in under-resourced communities to get all children reading so they can reach their potential.
Worldreader works in dozens of schools and libraries across East Africa, and millions of readers access our library via their mobile phones in this region. Our LEAP project brought digital reading to all 61 public libraries in Kenya. Our Anasoma pilot project was the first of our dedicated efforts to leverage digital reading
to empower women and girls.
We are actively seeking to expand our work in this region through
partnerships with local governments and NGOs.
Our app BookSmart is available free of cost in Latin America and features many books in Spanish and dual-language collections. In Mexico, our past project Avanzalee aimed to instill a love of reading in youth by bringing them a carefully curated library of books. In Peru, our previous Crecelee project targeted children in grades two to four with the aim of instilling reading habits from a young age.
Many of our previous program partners are still using BookSmart in the field.
Across India there are Aanganwadis and public primary schools that lack basic reading resources. Our past work in this region has focused on early childhood education. In close collaboration with Pearson, the Central Institute of Educational Technologies, and local NGOs, we pioneered the Read to Kids program which encouraged parents to read to their children by leveraging mobile phones. Worldreader is currently not running any programs in East Asia, but our reading app BookSmart is available in India and other countries and we have books with local stories.
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