Reading Bear developments

[DadDude]

Your wish is my command!

Since my programmers had a few extra cycles as the programming side of the project came to a close, I had them break down presentations into 5-word chunks.  If you go to http://watchknowreader.busedge.com/ and look below the presentation titles (there are now 9 presentations), you'll see letters: a, b, c, etc.  Those represent small (baby-sized!) chunks of the much longer presentations.  If you make an account and log in, then there will be numbers in parentheses after those letters.  Every time you click on one of the letters, the counter for just that part will go up.  This way you can keep track of how many times you've viewed (or at least, clicked on) a part of a presentation.  I hope that works for you!

Also, for those of you with slow connections, the "low quality" version of the presentations now work well.  In fact, the whole thing should be pretty much bug-free (patreiche's bug, which we tried to but can't replicate, notwithstanding).

[A_BC]

Hi DadDude,

I just wanted to thank you for this great reading tool. I showed it to my baby who has just turned 1 and he LOVED it. He was even asking for more till something funny happened: he said the word "pat" with no prior listening to the pronunciation. I could not believe it first but he kept repeating it... I am wondering if babies can intuit phonics with Reading Bear. If they do, then it would be really amazing!

I am wondering if it can be translated to other languages. I would volunteer for Arabic. Reading Bear would work perfectly as the language is "very phonic".

[DadDude]

A_BC, thanks for the feedback!

Do you mind telling me how you've been using it?  For example, how often, how long your sessions go, which presentation type you use (Sound It Out For Me, or another one), whether you show the video of the word spoken, etc.

Just very curious how people are using it!

Re: translating to other languages, maybe indeed, but first let me get the American English Reading Bear going!  After that, I imagine the Brits will be demanding a British English edition...

[A_BC]

Hi DadDude,

I started with the audio only, just to give it a try, that<s when my baby said "pat". Now, I am using the sound it slowly everyday we have English, i.e: 3 times a week, usually right after LR.

So now I am using it on a regular basis and wish I could use it for the other languages too (for those, I use downloads from LR library)

Thanks again for all your effort and great sense of pedagogy.

[TracyR4]

Wow!  This is coming along nicely. I can't wait to give this a try with my daughter. I'm thinking she'll really enjoy this.

[Mae_Jakob_Ka]

Hi Larry,

Reading Bear is such a great tool for teaching blending phonic sounds! I love it so much. I have showed the program to my son who's now 2 years and 10 months old. He loves it too!. He specially loves the part where the lady asks him to read it himself.

I did not try the A,E,I,O,U lessons because we already did those lessons with our homemade Flesch phonics lessons. I started off with the Suffixes and haven't found any bugs so far. The program works perfectly fine on my laptop (Windows 7, 64 bits).

I can't thank you enough for creating such a wonderful tool. It's so helpful for me who's not an English native speaker. Before I tried Reading Bear, I did not know how to create Suffix lessons for my son because some of the phonic sounds are very difficult for me sound them out correctly. Reading Bear saves me a lot of time, and I have a proper tool with perfect pronunciation for my son! I can't be happier than this!

Big thanks, and keep up the excellent work!

Elle

[DadDude]

Thanks, Elle, this makes my day!

Six more presentations should be coming online within two weeks.

[DadDude]

Elle, do you ever quiz your daughter?  If so, try the Reading Bear quizzes over the short vowels and let me know what happens.

[Mae_Jakob_Ka]

Larry;

I did try to quiz him today but when I saw multiple choices, I am not sure if he's ready for that...
Maybe I could try it on the TV screen as he's doing IXL on the big screen. He normally touches or points at the right answers.

I guess I could try that with Reading Bear too. I will let you know how it goes!!

Elle

[early learning17]

Dear Larry,

I think we are officially now in October javascript:void(0) How is Reading Bear going? Are you very VERY close to launching it?
I am sure you know how much we are all waiting for it...So any news on this will be greatly appreciated.
Unfortunately cannot help as not English Native. Hope you got enough volunteers by now!

Take care,
Isa

We're now up to five presentations on the Reading Bear demo site: http://watchknowreader.busedge.com/  Five presentations cover Short A, E, I, O, and U.  If you play the full versions, this takes (I estimate) over 90 minutes to get through.  And we've just started.  Actually, the audio & text are matched up reliably only for the first two presentations.  We're still working on the final touches for the Short I, O, and U...which is actually a lot of work.  (I guess that means IOU a lot of work!  Ha!)

Also, now there are quizzes and a review to explore.

And you can set up an account and track your progress.

If you're still interested in helping me develop this completely free, non-profit, educational resource, do let me know at [email protected]!

A launch, on http://www.readingbear.org/ , is planned for October.

[DadDude]

The goal now is "mid-October."  We're close to on track.  Finishing the content for presentations 10-15 on time is going to be a big challenge, but I think we'll be able to do it.

If you're really waiting, then by golly, start using it at http://watchknowreader.busedge.com!  I'm going to tell the programmers to make sure that user data is copied to readingbear.org, so if you make progress, your progress should be saved when we make the switch.

I'm sorry to say that a lot of the volunteers have stopped contributing, but I'll have more for them to do, and will get them fired up (I hope!) after launch.  At this point, the only thing volunteers could really save me time with is the timing data.  On that, we have one very active volunteer, kauaiheidi (thanks Heidi!).

[DadDude]

WAIT, let me take that back.  In fact, you could help me.  Find me videos and pictures (in that order) on http://www.shutterstock.com/ to go with the following.

I have high, or at least idiosyncratic, standards, so I might not use your suggestions, but I really appreciate any help.  (Personally it sometimes takes me 20 minutes to find just the right video--pix usually faster, but sometimes I take a long time there, too.)  You can get some tips from this video and the three that follow it:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/G2_USKYAqBY&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/G2_USKYAqBY&rel=1</a>

check
To check is to see whether something is correct.  [teacher grading exam?]

chick
A chick is a baby bird, especially a baby chicken.

crunch
To crunch is to crush or chew noisily. [someone eating cereal, potato chips, or other noisy food, causing annoyance; etc.]

chat
A chat is the sort of talk friends have. These ___ are chatting.

chill
When the cold makes you shiver, you feel a chill.

chum
A chum is a good friend.

much
How much sand is there in the Sahara Desert [or if a Sahara vid is hard to find: the desert]?

such
Rover is such a good dog!  [someone petting/loving a pet dog]

which
Which ____ would you like?  [a person considering a choice, or better, one person offering another a choice]

rich
You are rich if you have much more money than most other people have.

ranch
A ranch is a large piece of land where cows and bulls are raised.

branch
A tree branch comes out of the tree trunk.  OR Watch the branch sway in the wind.

lunch
Lunch is the meal we eat around noon

quench
A tall glass of cool water will quench your thirst.

punch
In boxing/karate, the fighters punch each other to score points.

pinch
To pinch is to squeeze hard with your fingers.

itch
If you have an itch, you need to scratch.

patch
A patch is a piece of cloth put over a hole in clothes. OR
If there is a hole in something, try putting a patch over it.

pitch
You pitch a ball for a batter to hit.

witch
In stories, a witch was an evil, magical old woman.

stretch
Stretch a rubber band [or...], and it becomes longer and thinner.

sketch
A sketch is a quick, simple drawing of something.

catch
Catch the ball/frisbee/etc.!  He/she caught it.

crutch
A crutch, or two crutches, helps a person with a broken leg to move about.

match
A match can be used to start a fire.

also a match
A match could also be when two things look just alike.  They match!

[bella]

is it just me or others are experience the same . we have very slow internet connection and the lessons are painfully very slow , no way i could keep any toddler interested by looking at the empty white screen between active screens 
i used similar programs before but once you upload a lesson to your computer than the next time you run it , it goes fast . i really love this program , dad dude it is amazing work and reason why my now 5 years old took off with her reading , we played so much with those cards , but i thought having the reading bear will save me printing them again for her little brother . am i doing something wrong ?? anything i could change in the setting that could make it go fast ?? wish it could be made to an ipad  application , the kids are so fascinated by this thing they are learning so much while they think they are playing .
to give you an example i could never play a you tube video directly online i should let it run once or save it o my computer than let it play , this is how bad our connection is . i really hope you can come with a way to save the program and lessons a la little reader to the computer than play them instead of doing it online .
viv

[DadDude]

Hi Viv, thanks for the feedback!

You're absolutely right re things not loading faster after they have loaded the first time.  I don't know why I never noticed this before, but you're absolutely right--those files should be cached semi-permanently.  Don't know why they aren't.  I'll have to get the programmers on it.

Do you have a slow Internet connection?  If so, you should probably click the "HD" button.  This will change from the "high definition" version (not actually high definition, just the better quality version) to the "low bandwidth" version.  This is still usable but should load much faster on a slow Internet connection.

At no point should you see a blank screen for more than a split second.  If you're waiting for the next slide to load, it should show you a progress bar.  Are you seeing a progress bar while you wait?  And if you are, then are you also seeing a link below it that says something like, "If you are tired of waiting, please click here to use our low bandwidth version."  There should be such a message that comes up with the progress bar.

[Mae_Jakob_Ka]

Hi Larry,

I do want to help!
I am not a native speaker but will look through the vdo you posted tonight to see if I could be of help in any way!.

Cheers,

Elle

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