Google is making its Read Along app for kids more interactive

Google’s Read Along app, that helps children have fun while they learn to read, now has a website. The Tech Giant launched the desktop version for users who have low storage on their phones or schools that have desktop computers. 

Just like the app, all the speech recognition process takes place on the browser locally and no data is sent to its servers to protect children’s privacy. Plus, the whole experience is ad-free.

With the web version, parents can let their children use Read Along on bigger screens by simply logging into a browser from laptops or PCs at readalong.google.com. 

Though still in Beta state, the site includes hundreds of illustrated stories at a few different reading levels. Once kids select a story, they start reading into their device’s microphone.

Words are highlighted in blue after they’ve read them, and mispronounced words are underlined in red; click an underlined word, and a virtual assistant, Diya, will pronounce it for you.

Supported browsers include Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, while others (including Safari) are coming soon, Google says. Stories are available in English, Hindi, Gujarati, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Google has also added new stories to Read Along’s collection, which will be available later this year in both the web and Android versions. These include adaptations of content from children’s video creators USP Studios and ChuChu TV, as well as alphabet and phonics books from education company Kutuki.

Read Along app first started as Bolo in 2019 with support for Hindi and English with additional language support for a wider audience in 2020. In the announcement, Google noted that since its launch the app has helped more than 30 million kids read over 120 million stories.

It is now partnering with new content providers as it plans to add more stories to the platform.

“In addition to the website launch, we are also adding some brand-new stories. We have partnered with two well-known YouTube content creators, ChuChu TV, and USP Studios, to adapt some of their popular videos into a storybook format,” it said in the announcement.

This new initiative will not only give kids more device options, it will also allow many to read on larger screens.