TinkRBook: a project to replace reading from parents to children

A new survey conducted, in May 2014, by Common Sense Media indicates that parents have started to read less to their children, especially since the arrival of the smartphone or tablet. Another study published in 2019 in JAMA Pediatrics by researchers from the University of Michigan, claimed that parents who read to their children on a tablet, whether an interactive e-book or not, experienced less social reciprocity.

Many other parents prefer to give the device to the child so that he or she can choose what content to consume. However, reading to a child is important for his linguistic development, because this is how he learns language best, its structure, its grammatical features, in addition to the fact that these readings lay the foundation for learning words that children would never hear in another context.

Other parents download interactive books that read automatically to their children, so they no longer think it is necessary for them to do so. To keep this good habit alive, a research tool called ThinkRBook has been developed.

Development of the MIT Media Lab

Cynthia Breazeal and her PhD student Angela Chang, from the Personal Robot Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, are the developers of the TinkRBook research tool (textual tinker ability).

In this way, a child can experiment with text in a way that is very similar to how interaction with parents would take place if they were reading the same text to them. For example, if the child touches a word on the screen, he or she can hear it in a recorded voice.

In this way, the child interacts with the text at different levels, even altering the narrative itself: if the word is "chicken", then he can see the image of a chicken, or influence its actions (like having an egg) or characteristics (change of colour in the chicken's feathers). With ThinkRbook you can also develop vocabulary or elaborate on concepts.

As Breazeal explains: "Within the context of shared reading, we have identified new interaction designs created jointly by a panel of experts from various narrative and educational disciplines. We have proposed a series of interaction techniques to select and navigate through numerous causal relationships between text and images. We also suggested a building block metaphor to create interactive elements of the story. When we begin to observe users with the interface, it will become clear that certain interactions are more suitable for active narrative exploration.

The purpose of all these options is for the child to develop a more cognitively active understanding of what reading means, rather than just another entertainment option, such as watching a video. It even goes beyond reading being a completely passive activity. In addition, the tool also allows parents to become more involved: the explicit demonstration of semantic highlighting and modifiable story elements allowed them to talk about the story elements.

Preliminary results from this ongoing fieldwork suggest that children love to explore a scene extensively and enjoy multisensory interaction techniques. One surprising observation is how much they enjoy the multisensory ability to control animations, exhibiting random touching and pointing behaviours to try to make things happen. This behaviour seems analogous to existing requests to reread their favourite books.

Beyond being a basis for developing future supplements for parents who have lost the habit of reading to their children, ThinkRBook also aims to be a valuable tool for children raised in difficult environments who lack books, a teacher or a school. Be that as it may, research into how to return to the tablet and smartphone qualities of traditional books (and interaction with parents or guardians) continues, especially when children access these devices at younger ages.