Some deliveries are just boxes. This one came with the internet.
Two schools in South Africa, Masakhe Primary School and A. W. Barnes Primary School, are among the first to read with Bookbot in our pre-pilot, a small early trial that runs before the full programme reaches 120 schools. But before any reading could start, two things had to happen. The schools had to get online. And the children needed something to read on.
Then both did. For the children, it was quite a surprise.
Boxes Become Phone Stands
Picture the room at A. W. Barnes. Long tables, school jerseys, a microwave in the corner, and a sticker on the table reminding everyone to clean up after eating. On the noticeboard, the school crest says “Aim High.” In front of the children sit slim black boxes.
Inside each box: a phone. On every phone: Bookbot.
The boxes did not go to waste. They became phone stands. In photo after photo the team sent me, the phones sit propped on their own packaging, like trophies on little black plinths.
Then the earphones go in. White cables loop across the tables and tangle between neighbours, and the stories begin.
Heads Down at Masakhe
At Masakhe Primary School, it is a classroom of wooden desks and brick walls, and the same white cables. My favourite moment from the whole pre-pilot so far is this short video: a room of heads bent over screens, and child after child with a hand cupped over one ear, the way you do when you really, really want to hear the story.
And behind all of it, at both schools, is the part nobody can see: the internet. Project Isizwe connected the schools and provided the phones, and the Head Start team helps children and teachers get started.
Listen First, Then Read Aloud
So what were they all listening to? Books, read aloud.
Bookbot can read a story to a child. A child can hear a book before reading it, or enjoy one that is still too hard to read alone. The books were localised for African readers, and the collection includes new African folktales.
Then the roles flip. The child reads aloud, and Bookbot listens. It uses speech recognition (software that turns spoken words into text) to follow along, word by word. In one photo from A. W. Barnes you can catch a student mid-sentence, mouth open, reading out loud to the phone.
Why We Start Small
With the schools online, new books and app updates can reach the phones. Teachers can see how their class is doing. And what we learn in these classrooms can travel back to us, so we can fix things fast.
That matters, because a pre-pilot is where we find out what breaks. Real classrooms are noisy. Earphones can tangle. Phones can run flat. It is much better to find those problems with a few classes than with 120 schools.
There is a bigger reason, too. Most speech recognition learns from adult voices, and very little of it has heard South African children read. Children sound different from adults, and a beginning reader sounds out a word, stops, and tries again. With permission from schools and families, recordings from the pre-pilot help us teach Bookbot to hear South African children better.
Bookbot only helps a child if it hears them properly. This is how we get there.
What’s Next
What we learn this term goes straight back into Bookbot, ready for the full programme next year.
Thank you to Project Isizwe for the connection and the phones, and to Head Start for being on the ground. Thank you to the principals and teachers at Masakhe Primary School and A. W. Barnes Primary School for opening your doors. And thank you to the children, who put their earphones in and got reading.
Masakhe means “let us build.” It is hard to think of a better name for a school where this begins.