{source}[[span style=”float: right; border-left: 1px solid gray; border-bottom: 1px solid gray; margin: 0pt 0pt 5px 5px; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 5px;width:250px;”]][[h3]]Related Articles[[/h3]][[br /]]{loadposition related}[[/span]]{/source}
August 8, 2010; Source: Wall Street Journal | One nonprofit, Worldreader, is trying to figure out if digital books are any better at teaching literacy to children in developing countries than their paper and print counterparts.
David Risher, a 45-year-old former Amazon senior vice president and Worldreader’s co-founder, has begun a series of trials in Ghana that involve giving students Amazon.com Kindles to read in school and at home.
Sign up for our free newsletters
Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.
By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.
Risher told the Wall Street Journal that e-books are well designed for the developing world because they don’t consume much power and they use the universal GSM network. For a population already more accustomed to cell phones than landlines, e-books might be a natural fit for the teaching of literacy.
And with an entire library at your fingertips, the wide selection of books can’t hurt the learning process. “There’s a huge difference between being able to read from a selection of the 10 books that you happen to have — or that somebody donated — versus being able to get your hands on a book that you are really interested in,” says Risher.—Aaron Lester
