Great stuff, thanks for sharing!

Re Auto forward, you can set everything to auto-forward using Override. Turn it on, open settings, click on "Additional", and you'll find it there. turn on AF (green), then tick the AF check-box.

However, I would recommend against doing it. The reason it's set to AF off is to encourage you to interact with your child and take your time. You could replay the note (click scroll wheel button) or even go back (right mouse), as necessary.

Re bass clef, it's not neglected as such, just delayed.   So much to show, so little time.

To me, we're not trying to cram everything into 1 year. Who knows - when we work on year 2, we may even feel that it needs to be spread out into 3.  Compared to other music programs out there, eg., Yamaha, the LMs curriculum is already way faster (as well as covering more).

[Please add your thoughts to this discussion thread I've just opened:]

Thanks for the feedback about the clapping, everyone!  We will swap around 'every beat' with 'first beat' for the Clap-Along lessons.
We'll probably also need to remove/replace the 3/4 beat songs cos every beat for these songs will be a bit too fast.

Hi, just a few things I've noticed.....

Not all viola pictures are violas. Some have spike (not extended) and no chin rest (not that a chin rest is always necessary), but they look like cellos to me.

Day 260 Rhythm:
The last 2 notes are written as 1/4 notes but are spoken 'Ti Ti' 1/8 Notes

The Brass 1 mp3 sounds like a saxophone group rather than a brass group.

Great catch, thank you!!  Better watch out - if you carry on like this, we may have to give you a secret reward...

Re 260 Rhythm lesson - it displays fine for me. Can you please help me take a screen shot of what you see?
(Press "PrtScn" or "Print Screen" button and paste onto MS Word or Powerpoint).

Quick question, above you mentioned that the colours can be set rather than random colours.  Does that mean we can set one colour for each note and have it the same each time? I ask because at school my kids learn do re me and each one has a different colour, it would be good to have it all match up. Others may be interesting in matching it to other music programs (rainbow piano).

Funny you should mention this.  First, yes, you are able to do it, but you have to do it as a new icon set (and choose "By note" instead of "simple"). If you try this, MAKE SURE YOU ARE ON BUILD 561. 560 will crash on you, big time.  Second, we are actually about to implement this by adding a rainbow colored icon set.

Please add your thoughts to this discussion thread I've just opened:

http://forum.brillkids.com/little-musician-general-discussion/using-different-colors-for-different-notes-opinions-please!/

Any possibility it can be made for MACS???

Eventually, I'm sure - YES.  However, I wouldn't hold my breath for it... You're more likely to see it on the ipad first before you do on the Mac, just like you are seeing LR on the iPad first (Mac version will be based off the iPad app.)

[See Rainbow Colors in action:]

We will be adding a new icon set to LMs which will be regular notes, except using rainbow colors - ie., C will be red, D will be orange, E will be yellow, etc.

For the full range of colors, please see the attached "BrillKids Rainbow Colors" powerpoint file (bottom of this post). Notice that we will have different colors for black keys too.

See Rainbow Colors in action:

If you want to see it in action, please DOWNLOAD and open/run the attached Rainbow-notes.lmss file to import a rainbow icon set into your LMs. (Note: black keys do not have different colors - we will add this function before launch.)

To apply it to all your lessons, use the OVERRIDE function:

- Press the Override button on the Play Panel at the bottom, so that the button is green.

- Click on the Settings button next to it

- Click on "Display & Sound"

- Tell LMs you want to override all icons by clicking on the "Icon:" label so that the red light turns green.

- Click on the icon menu on the right to search for BK Rainbow Colors. Click on "Icon only" and "Sets" and scroll down to find it.

- Press Save.

Now, for all lessons showing notes on the staff, the note heads will show the BK Rainbow Colors instead.  You can go back to the original by just turning Override OFF.


Discussion:

NOW HERE ARE MY QUESTIONS FOR YOU:

- Should we incorporate Rainbow colors into the curriculum?

- If so, how much?


MY THOUGHTS:

- If your objective is to teach your child to read notes on the musical staff, then I think having different colors for different notes is a distraction and conveys a false association.  Instead of noticing that the pitch changes depending on where the note is in relation to the staff lines, the focus may be purely on the note color, with the note position ignored, either partly or completely.  This is actually the reason why I had initially resisted using note colors in the curriculum.

- If your objective is to train the EAR to recognize pitch, then I believe a color association would be very helpful when starting out.  The more associations there are to something, the easier it is for us to remember it.  I believe this is scientifically proven as a general concept, and also common sense.  This, I believe, is also the same reason why solfege hand gestures help children learn solfege, why the Eguchi method also associates colors with chords, and why several other systems also adopt different colors for different notes (both on the keyboard and as written notes on the staff).

- I believe it's more important to train the ear, than it is to read notes on the staff.  Luckily, I don't think it has to be an either/or.  I think one idea is to start with training the ear (ie., use note colors predominantly) for even the entire first 2 semesters, and then remove the colors in Sem3+4 and start getting them to associate pitch purely with the position on the musical staff.

Either way, you will be able to choose, using the Override function described above.  However, I would like to decide which approach we take by default in the curriculum, so I'd like to get as much input as possible asap to decide this.

So, what do you think?

I just downloaded LMs, tried the first lesson, very impressive. My daughter will be 5 this year. I hope it is not too late for her, we ve been waiting for years.

Certainly not too late.  I truly believe that LMs is useful even for adults, and the feedback I've been getting from testers seem to confirm that.  Of course, the younger you start, the better, but there's no point dwelling on the time that has past.

Just a suggestion for the Clap-a-long section. I am a Musikgarten teacher, so teach music to 18 Months- 3 Years as well as 4 to 6 year old children. My experience is that the children have trouble clapping so slowly. I would suggest it would be better to start with clapping on every beat rather than 1 per bar. It's the natural way children move to music when they hear it as well.

Interesting, thanks very much for that very useful comment!  Which age group is it more difficult for, the younger or older?  I presume you mean the younger?  I was actually afraid that the younger groups wouldn't be able to keep up.

Would love to have more input on this from others.

Just a few suggestions - I don't know if I'm being pedantic - but colour scheme during the chord progression and solfege - can it be a bit more pleasing to the eye? i think I'm quite visual but maybe you use complementary colour schemes for the session.

Colors are random, so sometimes they may clash, sometimes they may look pleasing. 
However, you can fix the colors manually if you want:  Turn "Override" (on the Play panel at the bottom) ON, click on the Settings icon, click on Display & Sound, Staff tab, turn on Note Color, and set your color there.

Suggestion for the playing of popular classics. Maybe do some photo eye play pictures rather than a white screen, get the right brain training on at the same time!!

We are working on visuals for this, but it won't make it to the first release.

With the first chord progression, I don't know whether it is important, but should you mention the note names do, mi, so or maybe name of the key or is it just to familiarise the child with the sound before the later segment with the solfege names?

The point of the lesson is this - every time you hear that chord, you'll immediately think of singing "domiso".  If you can do this, you'll know what sounds/pitches the chord is made of, and what each of those sounds/pitches are in solfege.

Now do you have Little Reader French ready yet??????  (joking)

Getting closer and closer. It will be even closer once Little Reader v3 is released - LR users will get to beta test it very soon.

The Little Musician Beta will be usable until May 10th, 2012 - will you extend that if the "real" version isn't quite ready for release?   Will anything from the Beta version still function/be usable after May 10?    Will you run any deals for Little Musician once it's released?      Can points be used towards purchase of software or curriculum? 

Yes, will extend if the final version is not ready by then.  No, beta will self-destruct on May 10th.
Haven't decided on the rest. Please stay tuned.

Got the Little Musician up, but even after downloading the license key (had some trouble with this but my husband helped me), the Little Musician says that I am on a 'trial,' and that I have 15 days to update my license key. What do I do now to be able to continue the beta testing until May 10?

I think you missed out Step 3, which is downloading and importing the content pack which contains the curriculum.  You can just do that step now, and it should work.

I have just a minor question ... is there any reason the name of the chords (eg C chord, F chord etc) are not mentioned before the chords are played?

Exactly the same reason why we don't teach note names in Sem1 and 2, but focus on Solfege.  It's far more useful for children to know the C chord as "domiso" rather than "C chord", which itself is ambiguous (eg., which inversion?), not to mention not very informative.

What age is being recommended to start Little Musician? I'm not sure my 7 month old will take to it.

LMs is probably the most versatile of all three of our programs in terms of age group.  You can start as an infant (probably best 6 months and up), but still benefit tremendously from it as a very old child. Heck, I would go so far to say even adults would benefit, especially those not familiar with musical concepts.  I can say that I, for one, still benefit from it, esp the solfege exercises and popular classics.

Ultimately, as with all our programs, you should just take your cue from your child. If he/she enjoys it, great. If not, put it away and try again another time.

Thanks for all your feedback so far - keep 'em coming!

[the curriculum]

Hi everyone!

It is with great pleasure that I’m announcing the commencement of OPEN BETA TESTING for Little Musician - everyone can now get to try it!

Thank you so much for your patience with this project, especially those of you who have been waiting since years ago.  The good thing about this long wait is that Little Musician is now much, MUCH more than what I had envisioned back then.

Many thanks to all the closed beta testers that have given invaluable feedback over the past months.  Since then, we’ve taken a lot of your feedback on board, and we’ve been working hard on getting the most important part of Little Musician ready - the curriculum.

I’m glad to let you know that the curriculum (Semesters 1 and 2) is now ready!  What’s more, you can try out the FULL 1-year curriculum during this beta testing period.

Scroll further down for
INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS

Types of Lessons

In the curriculum, you will see these types of lessons appear - more than once a session in some cases:

1. Chord Recognition

There are nine chords that we want your child to be able to recognize instantly.  (For you musicians, these are the C, F, and G chords, in root, first inversion and second inversion.) The chords are played with instruments, and sung out in Solfege.  Examples are “domiso” for the C Major (root) chord, and “falado” for the F Major chord.  Together, the nine chords cover all the notes of the C Major scale (white keys).  This is similar to the Eguchi method used in Japan, which some consider to be the best way to foster ‘perfect pitch’ and which apparently has produced a very high success rate.

2. Note Sounds

This is the most basic of lessons, and lets your child associate pitch with the written note on the musical staff.  It’s a good way to show how higher pitched notes are written higher and lower pitched notes lower.  Different instrument sounds are used, and we use different note icons like baby faces instead of notes.

3. Solfege

These lessons teach individual notes in Solfege (eg., Do, Re, Mi), with notes shown on the musical staff.  Your child will start associating pitch with the note position on the musical staff, as well as with the relevant solfege syllable.  Semester 1 focuses purely on C Major.  Semester 2 introduces Solfege in F Major.  Lesson slides are forwarded manually because we want to encourage you to take your time to interact with your child.  During the lessons, it’s very important to sing out the note you hear, and - if possible - encourage your child to sing it out, too.

4. Exercises

These are exercises which help train the ear (Hear and Sing), and help to promote sight-reading of notes (See and Sing).  Hear and Sing exercises train both chord recognition, as well as individual note recognition, encouraging your child to listen to the chord or note, and sing it out in Solfege.  See and Sing exercises show notes on the musical staff and encourages your child to sing it out in Solfege, similar to how your child would read out words or sentences.

5. Clap-Along

Clap-Along lessons are designed to give your child an introduction to rhythm and beats.  During these lessons, children songs (such as Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star) are played, and your child is encouraged to clap along to the beat.  Different beat rhythms are introduced as the curriculum progresses.

6. Music Knowledge

In these lessons, your child will get to learn more about how music is made.  First, your child is introduced to different musical instruments (eg., violin, trumpet, clarinet), hear what they sound like, and see how they are played.  Second, your child will also learn more about famous classical composers (eg., Bach, Mozart, Beethoven) and some of the famous pieces they composed.

7. Music Appreciation

The aim of these lessons is to expose your child to classical music, and through the exposure, let her gain familiarity with (as well as appreciation of) classical music.  These lessons include clips from fifty of the most popular classical pieces, such as Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus. 

8. Rhythm

Rhythm lessons will introduce your child to rhythm syllables, such as “Ta” for quarter notes/crotchets, and “Ti” for eighth notes/quavers.  Rhythm syllables are a good way to learn how music notation on the musical staff indicate different lengths of time, and therefore how rhythm is notated.  Rhythm lessons start from Semester 2.

9. Scales

Through these lessons, your child will see and hear different scales in different keys.  Lessons cover both major scales as well as the different minor scales (harmonic, melodic and natural), and are played out using instruments as well as with Solfege voices.  Scales lessons start from Semester 2.

10. Keyboard

Keyboard lessons will introduce your child to the keyboard, showing how the different black and white keys of the keyboard correspond to the different Solfege notes and music pitches.  Instead of perceiving the keyboard as an overwhelming sea of black and white keys, your child will see them in distinct groups made up of lower to higher octave patterns.  Keyboard lessons start from Semester 2.


Points to Note:

- Solfege
There is a large emphasis placed on Solfege.  This encourages us to use the best instrument we all have - our voice box! Furthermore, I believe it is an excellent (if not the best) way to let us have a deeper understanding of notes and musical relationships.  To understand more about my thoughts on this, please read my blog post titled "Why I Avoid Classical Piano Training for My Daughter":
http://blog.brillkids.com/?p=126

(For those familiar with Solfege, we chose to use “So” and “Ti” instead of “Sol” and “Si”, although you will be able to change this manually.  We also use different syllables for black keys, such as “Di” for C#.  Lastly, we chose to use the Fixed Do system over Movable Do as this is more consistent with our efforts to teach note and chord recognition.)

- Unconventional Notation
The way we notate notes on the musical staff can be unconventional, and therefore, sometimes not strictly correct.  For example, most of the lessons omit the note stem and show only the note head. The reason for this is that the aim of the lessons is to highlight how the positioning of a note on the musical staff (higher/lower) corresponds to its pitch.  We believe there is greater clarity and focus when we do not deal with note stems and note values.  To teach note values, we use dedicated rhythm syllable lessons that are introduced in Semester 2.

- More Semesters
We plan to release Semesters 3 and 4, as there is a lot more to cover that could not be covered in Semesters 1 and 2.

- No Note Names etc.
In Semesters 1 and 2, we do not use note names (C, D, E, etc.) at all.  As mentioned, the focus is on Solfege, so as to encourage the singing out of the notes.  Note names will be introduced in Semester 3.

We also focus primarily on treble clef when the musical staff is shown, and not the bass clef.  Bass clef will have more prominence in Semester 3.

- Rainbow Colors??
Please add your thoughts as to whether we should have different colors for different notes:

http://forum.brillkids.com/little-musician-general-discussion/using-different-colors-for-different-notes-opinions-please!/

- Commercial Release
When will Little Musician be released commercially? It’s hard to say right now as a lot will depend on what bugs show up during this beta testing period and how fast we can fix them.  We’re hoping to have it out sometime in May if all goes smoothly.

Pricing is also yet to be decided, but you can probably expect it to be in the same range as Little Reader and Little Math. 


Installing Little Musician Beta

[PLEASE SEE THIS THREAD FOR AN UPDATED BUILD:
http://forum.brillkids.com/little-musician-general-discussion/little-musician-beta-near-final-version-download-here/ ]


Known Issues

The current version should be reasonably stable but we are still working on a few things to improve stability.

Other than that, these are some of the things we will be doing before launch:

1. Replacing some of the voices in the title slides with professionally-recorded audio

2. Fixing the timing of Clap-Along - some of the songs are not clapping correctly

3. The Start Guide and Download sections have been disabled until we finish the content for it, and much of the Support section is still empty.

IMPORTANT: Those of you with older / slower computers may experience problems with some of the lessons playing back smoothly, in particular, the Rhythm lessons or song presets which play out voice audio in real time.  These lessons require a lot of computer power which older computers may not have.


Feedback

Please give us your feedback, be it positive or negative!  Feel free to reply to this post or start a
new thread.

If you find any bugs or have any technical issues:

> Please post your question / problem in the Technical Support board here: http://forum.brillkids.com/tech-support-b295/

> If you are experiencing software errors or crashes, please send a description of the problem along with your Diagnostic Report to support[at]brillkids[dot]com
http://support.brillkids.com/entries/20438423-how-to-create-a-diagnostic-report-for-your-brillkids-learning-system


Happy testing!

KL

Would love to support this in any way we can! (Though not quite so sure about flying all the way to Down Under...  )

[our latest blog post]

Hi all! Please see our latest blog post introducing Dr. Richard Gentry who will be contributing to our BrillKids Blog!
(I'm especially pleased since my blog posts are so far and few in between!)     


Dr. Richard Gentry Joins The BrillKids Blog!

We’re thrilled to announce that Dr. J. Richard Gentry will become a contributor to the BrillKids Blog! 

A former University professor and elementary school teacher, Dr. Gentry brings to BrillKids over thirty years of experience in the field of early education.  He is also the author of many books including Raising Confident Readers: How to Teach Your Child to Read—From Baby to Age 7.

Dr. Gentry joined the BrillKids Foundation team earlier this year to help with our “early education for every child” mission.  Now, he will also be contributing his thoughts on early childhood education on the BrillKids Blog.

By way of introduction, we took the opportunity to conduct a written interview with Dr. Gentry for the benefit of BrillKids members.

 
-How did you first come across the concept of baby/toddler reading, and what were your first thoughts about it?
 
I’ve studied beginning reading for over thirty years and have written books about how very young children learn to read in school. Although I knew many children learned to read as babies and toddlers before entering school, there is little research on 2- and 3-year-old readers and I had not worked with them, so like most reading professors and researchers, baby/toddler reading was an academic blind spot. After being invited to write a book for parents about raising readers, my first thoughts were “Get to work!” I had waited too long to investigate this important topic. It took me three years to write the book!
 
- Was there anything that surprised you about the subject, or which you didn't realize before?
 
Almost everything I learned surprised me—there were new discoveries about beginning reading with great potential for the reading world. The work I did with parents who were successful teaching their babies and toddlers to read opened new doors to my thinking. I learned that babies learn to read differently and more easily than children who learn to read in school from formal instruction and that the most important aspect of early reading was interaction with loving parents and bonding. I’m convinced that baby/toddler reading has long-term positive effects on children such as better facility with language, building intelligence, and boosting academic success in school.
 
- Why do you think some experts are slow to accept the notion that babies can read?
 
Some experts don’t understand the importance of early “word reading.” Baby/toddler readers likely go through a different set of steps for organizing the reading brain circuitry than six-year-old nonreaders who learn to read from formal instruction in school. Some experts don’t recognize that babies pick up reading easily from developmentally appropriate interactions with parents and they have special language capacities from birth to age three, just as they do with learning multiple languages, enabling them to do remarkable things with learning to read during this special window of opportunity for brain development. Most of the experts who are skeptical think real reading begins with phonics and they don’t recognize that given the right exposure, toddlers can intuit the rules of phonics over time just like they intuit the rules of grammar which are necessary to speak in sentences.  I predict that new discoveries from brain scanning will soon show  development of the beginnings of brain circuitry for reading in babies and toddlers.  Magneticelectroencepholography has potential to show changes in brain architecture with babies reading words as early as eight months of age and perhaps potential to track how the toddler’s reading brain circuitry grows over time.My hypothesis is that the studies will show development as baby/toddler readers move from reading words to couplets to sentences along with other language related developments. (for more on this see “Revolutionary Machine Reveals Baby Geniuses” http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/raising-readers-writers-and-spellers/201110/revolutionary-machine-reveals-baby-geniuses)

We know that early reading also includes a lot of early memory reading by children who love reading their favorite books over and over with their parents. But surprisingly, teaching babies and toddlers to read need only take little time—five or ten minutes a day along with routine story reading and book sharing. It’s really about brief lessons that are more like word games to the child, lessons that are fun to play with mom, dad or a care giver along with enjoying books together. All children should have these experiences as babies and toddlers. Experts who aren’t in favor of baby/toddler reading don’t get the concept. They usually think it’s forced, formal, or beyond the babies capacity to read. Of course, it isn’t.
 
- What do you think are the keys to success in teaching babies and toddlers to read?
 
From an instructional standpoint the keys to success are found in the acronym READ: Repetition—Enthusiasm—Attention—Drawing. (Early pencil and paper activity often leads the child to try writing and to think about how the system works.) But the real keys to success are simple: parent interaction and bonding, enjoying books and word games, never using force. Reading? If you put it out there and let babies and toddlers have fun with it they soak it up.
 
- If you had President Obama's attention, what would you tell him?
 
I would probably ask to talk to Michelle. I’d say let’s do for baby toddler reading what you have done for childhood obesity—make it a national priority. I would explain how baby/toddler reading could revolutionize educational reform in America and do more than any other single concept to erase the achievement gap (because the achievement gap starts before kids enter school), and then I would explain why America needs to lead a campaign for baby/toddler reading worldwide. Coupled with today’s technology, imagine a world where every child learns to read joyfully and has a chance at self-fulfillment. Everyone benefits. Baby/toddler reading is a powerful concept for a bright world future.

-----------

PLEASE WELCOME DR. GENTRY TO BRILLKIDS! 

KL

[please help us by rating the app and leaving a review!]

Thanks, all! And if you all would be so kind - please help us by rating the app and leaving a review!   

I am so glad there is a Little Reader app now.  Thank-you. There is mention that PC users can access curriculum.  How is this done?

This feature is not available yet but will be by hopefully early next year. Stay tuned!

It would be good if we are able to sync what is being taught to the little one on the pc,
can also be taught on ipad..
so at least if little one missed a lesson,
this can be done when we are outside..
Jus a suggestion 

That's also planned! Once we get the course curricula on the app, then we would next be working on getting them sync'd.

Can you check whether it's because you have Parental Restrictions turned ON?

Please go to the Settings -> General -> Restrictions and check whether the option In-App-Purchases is disabled.

[US Infomercial]

This is reposted from my Blog here:
http://blog.brillkids.com/?p=190
-------

It's been quite a while since my last blog post. In fact, over the past few months, I haven't even been able to be very active on the Forums either.

What have we been up to? Quite a lot!


US Infomercial

The  that has been occupying my time, since the beginning of this year, actually, is the production of a 30-minute infomercial on Little Reader, for the US market. I'm happy to announce that it's just been launched, and we just finished our first week of test airings! As we continue to make adjustments to the show and re-test it, those of you in the US and Canada might see the show on and off over the next few months.

For those of you interested to see the show, here it is:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/HmKyiTGvSp4&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/HmKyiTGvSp4&rel=1</a>

(This is an edited version with repeated segments removed.)

I also talked about the testimonials that we got from parents in this Forum thread:
http://forum.brillkids.com/little-reader/the-little-reader-testimonial-project!/



Little Musician

As many of you may know, we started beta testing of Little Musician a few months back. Since then, we've continued to add more features to it based on your feedback, and most importantly, we've been working on putting together a curriculum that takes you by the hand and guides you what you show to your child each day. This is especially crucial for parents who have little or no music background.

There are many enhancements that have been added, but the 2 main features you will see are:

- Rhythm syllables - ie., Ta, Ta-ah, Ti, Tika, etc.

- Customizable icons to replace note heads - Similar to how you can use all sorts of icons instead of dots in Little Math, you can now use your own icons instead of the note heads too!



Little Reader

We're very excited with what we've been doing with Little Reader. In the next major update (tentatively called "v3"), you will see new features including:

- Child Profiles - Keep track of different children's progress

- Game mode - Show different words and have your child choose the correct one

- Split Audio - Audio files can be split so that each phoneme, syllable or word can be sounded out separately

- Course Creator - Edit our curricula, and create your own course!

For full details, see my Forum post here:
http://forum.brillkids.com/little-reader/little-reader-v3-0-look-what's-coming-next!/



Little Reader Touch for iPad

We will soon be launching our iPad version of Little Reader, called Little Reader Touch ("LRT").

LRT is designed to be the iPad companion to Little Reader for the PC, so that existing LR users can play back their lessons using the iPad instead of the PC. This is similar to how the BrillKids Presentation Binder Set also allows you to teach your child away from the PC and in the comfort of your living room.

The functions of LRT are currently still limited, so you still have to rely on the PC version to do many things such as editing lessons.

Further details on what this means for existing LR users will be announced in due course.

------


Hope that explains a little why I haven't been around the Forum much in the past few months!

OK, back to work!

KL

[1. Child Profiles]

We're very excited with what we've been doing with Little Reader. In the next major update (tentatively called "v3"), you will see new features including:

1. Child Profiles

If you have more than one child using LR, you can now keep different stats for for them, and show the relevant course according to which child is using it at the time.


2. Game mode

You can play back any lesson in game mode, where LR will show different words from the Category, and ask you to pick the correct word.  Can be set to show 2, 4, 6, 8, or 9 words to choose from.


3. Split Audio

In v2, we have Split Mode which allowed us to split a word or sentence into different parts, and color code them so that it's easy for the child to see the parts.

In v3, Split Mode is now enhanced such that even the audio files can be recorded in 'split audio' mode.  This allows a word such as "Animals" to be played back as "A... ni... mals.... Animals", and you can play back any part of the word separately.  Likewise, with sentences, you could play back each individual word separately, and you could even choose to split a word into the consonants and vowels etc. (eg., "cuh... ah... tuh... cat")

You just need to record the audio file in parts, then the complete version at the end, and LR will detect the parts and split it for you.


4. Course Creator

This is probably the most important feature in this release.  You will be able to:

- Edit our Curriculum

You can add/remove Categories to the BrillKids curricula to suit your child's level or interests.  If he's already mastered a Category, simply remove it.  If he's particularly keen on dinosaurs, then you could create or download dinosaur Categories and insert them into the curriculum to spice up the lessons.  Basically, you will have total flexibility and control over your daily curriculum lessons!


- Create your own Curricula

You can simply take Categories that you like, and have them auto-generated into a day-by-day curriculum without having to plan out what is shown every day.  Just add all the Categories you want to show into the melting pot, and LR will spit them back out in daily lessons.  You can create different lessons for each day, like Word Flash, Multisensory, etc., and even multiple sessions per day.  Little Reader will do all the word rotation and Category retirements for you. 

Yes, you will be able to create something that's nearly identical to our existing Curriculum.  BTW, this will also mean that we will be able to launch new language curricula much faster!


---------

This should be ready early next year.  We will announce upgrade details closer to the time.  Some features will be available in a free upgrade for existing users, but some might not be (just to give you a forewarning!).

LOOKING FOR VOLUNTEERS

We're looking for some help!  Please let me know if you fit the following description:

- You are or have been a frequent user of Little Reader

- You are very familiar with all its major features, including creating and editing Categories

- You have a lot of time

- You are interested in trying out the existing beta build of LR v3 with your child

(If you're also using the Chinese curriculum, please let me know too.)

We're looking for a handful of people to help give it a good test, and also to help us replicate/check our current English and Chinese Curricula that's generated in the new 'Auto-Course' format.

Those who are interested, please either post her or PM me.  Thanks very much!

KL

[HOW IT AFFECTED THE CHILD:]

Hi all,

I've been wanting to share these videos with everyone for a long time, and now I finally can!

We've been working on an infomercial in the US, and as part of the show, we needed to have testimonials from parents.  Although we have had so many testimonials from people around the world, the problem was, they were all around the world!

So, since our production company was in California, in March this year, they helped us find nearly 40 sets of parents in California who were willing to try out Little Reader with their babies or toddlers. They were given Little Reader to use for free, with the only conditions being that they would use the product regularly, take some video footage of the learning process, and come back in for a video interview after about 10 weeks.

After 10 weeks, we were pleased to find that there were still over 30 parent groups still active with the program (a few parents had dropped out from the project due to reasons such as lack of time, or computer compatibility issues).

We had a limited studio time of two days which allowed us enough time to interview 10 parents for each day, and we invited 18 of those parents and another 2 more long-time Little Reader users to a film studio and interviewed them about their experience of using the program. One of the parents had to cancel at the last minute, so we ended up conducting 19 interviews.

There were some very clear themes that came out consistently. Let me share those themes with you along with the videos:


HOW IT AFFECTED THE CHILD:

1. The children loved it!

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/SrW9v_IsR1c&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/SrW9v_IsR1c&rel=1</a>

2. Dramatic Improvement in Vocabulary and Communication

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/M3EHQ3AyuRk&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/M3EHQ3AyuRk&rel=1</a>

Developing Reading Skills

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/C04fVI5yaEI&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/C04fVI5yaEI&rel=1</a>

Other benefits such as an increase in confidence and desire to learn

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/9ZNvET7EWig&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/9ZNvET7EWig&rel=1</a>

HOW IT AFFECTED THE PARENT(S):

Bonding Between Parent and Child

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/c3YYWQ8V47I&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/c3YYWQ8V47I&rel=1</a>

Parents' Pride in Being the First Teacher

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/xMXa5dHTDZw&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/xMXa5dHTDZw&rel=1</a>

And speaking of teachers, what did teachers think? Very fortunately (totally unplanned!), we had two current and former 6th grade English teachers in the group. This is what they said:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/JPGP1LD_Yhs&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/JPGP1LD_Yhs&rel=1</a>

-----------

Making the Video Montages

The above video montages are just some of the montages that appear in the show.  They made from over 11 hours of video testimonial footage. Originally, each theme had a length of about 2 minutes, which was already shorter than we would have liked. However, due to the constraint of time for the infomercial, we had to reduce most of them down to under a minute – often a very heart-breaking and agonizing process!

We hope to be able to show extended versions of the videos when time and resources permit (it's quite a painstaking process to produce each part, especially in removing all the green screen elements from the background).

Lastly, Tonya (TeachingMyToddlers) is also part of the parent group! She's the only one there who was an 'old' user. She's the one in a purple shirt with her husband David (in a blue shirt).  Thanks again, Tonya!!


"Are those people actors?"

One question we sometimes get from viewers is whether the interviews are 'real' interviews, as opposed to scripted interviews with paid actors, because they sometimes seem 'too good to be true'.  We take that as a great compliment!

All I can say is, absolutely not.  In fact, we would be more than happy to provide access to the entire unedited interview footage, full transcript of the interviews, and even contact details of each of the parents, to any person or organization that has a legitimate interest in finding out.


Let me know what you guys think!

KL

1. We've got a very bad track record in fulfilling timelines, so I would rather not say. Heck, fine, I think it should be within 1-2 months.

2. Unfortunately, the content may not be quite what you're looking for.  What's being released is a lot more Categories of words, so the emphasis is on vocabulary expansion rather than developing higher levels of reading (eg., with sentences and stories).  So you'll get more Categories of animals, transportation, nature, sports, etc.

3. I would still recommend you hire someone to do the new content, especially if you'll be giving it away for free.  I'm sure it would be highly appreciated by the whole community!

KL