Duolingo, an American language learning platform, has recently launched its kid’s literacy app, ‘ Duolingo ABC’ in India. The platform is specially designed to assist children between the ages of three and eight years learn how to read and write in English. Learning experts create it; the free-to-use app offers over 700 concise lessons covering the alphabet, phonics, and sight words. An official statement said the program provides a unique learning approach with nine distinct levels.
‘Duolingo ABC’ app has a child-friendly interface; it aims to assist children in learning to read independently in a fun and straightforward way. The statement further mentioned that the application customises the learning experience depending on the child’s reading level, offering shorter, easier-to-decode words and stories in early levels and providing longer-form stories with less support in later levels.
Speaking about the initiative, Country Marketing Manager of Duolingo, Karandeep Singh, said:
We know that teaching people to read and write can change lives, and by taking everything we know about how people learn languages, with Duolingo ABC, we want to use our expertise in encouraging and motivating kids to build a strong literacy foundation.
The app features personalised lessons, such as teaching children how to write their name and letter writing activities that teach each lowercase and a capital letter to kids, as per the release. According to research by The Education Development Center, the teaching methodology used by Duolingo ABC has also been shown to improve literacy scores by 28% among kids who have used the app for nine weeks.
Duolingo allows anyone to learn to read, listen, and speak in most of the world’s prominent languages through games and bite-sized lessons. The platform also supports many niche vernaculars and fictional tongues such as Klingon. It’s based on a methodology that fosters long-term retention and a curriculum aligned to an international standard. The startup offers learners to discover patterns independently without focusing on language rules — the same way a child learns their first language. This “implicit learning” approach is ideal for developing a strong foundational knowledge of a language and its rules.
Last year in October, Duolingo acquired Gunner, an illustration and animation studio based in Detroit, to enhance the animation element that makes its learning app feel fun. In 2020, the company had raised $35 million from Durable Capital and General Atlantic.
