Annie Lussier, remedial teacher, surrounded herself with authors and illustrators to create film books of funny, touching and incredible stories. With Tadadam!, young people land in a “Netflex”-style library with animated books, classified according to their number of words. They therefore find themselves in a position of choice and can, themselves, gradually set themselves the challenges of books with ever more and more words. With Tadadam! we create the pleasure of reading books and we develop self-confidence in reading. The app. is entirely made in Quebec!
Who is the app for?
This fun movie-book application is mainly aimed at readers aged between 9 and 12. It is also highly recommended for young dyslexics living with a challenge regarding written language.
Movie books are classified according to their number of words. Regardless of the number of words, all stories are mature and require a good level of understanding. To be even more enriching, the books contain a rich and varied vocabulary, taking care to offer readers simple definitions for more complex terms.
To prevent young readers from feeling visual or cognitive overload, only one sentence or sentence segment is presented at a time. The choice of font and the size of the characters favor overall reading as well as syllabic reading. The child who needs more support can have the sentence segments read to them using voice synthesis (oral reading).
This app is equipped with a generous positive reinforcement system established with the aim of giving readers confidence in addition to enhancing it.
Ultimo, this application following the cinematic framework, invites readers to consider reading as a “film”; it makes you want to evoke images, memories, landmarks, thus promoting understanding and finally, the pleasure of reading!
Does the app include?
1) A film book library offering
• books of 100 to 300 words (flyweight!)
• books of 300 to 600 words (featherweight!)
• books of 600 words or more (heavyweight!)
2) The possibility of voice synthesis
3) Simple definitions for complex terms
4) A reinforcement system (puzzle pieces gradually revealing the image linked to the story are gained following the reading of sentences)
Why did we design the app?
Over the course of her career, Ms. Lussier, a remedial teacher, has had the opportunity on many occasions to hear parents lament their child's lack of interest in reading... She herself and several of her colleagues come to the same conclusions; too many young readers have not yet developed the pleasure of reading, they have little, if any, motivation to read books... The very idea of having to read is enough to trigger real dizziness in some, real apprehensions of not being up to the task. Faced with this observation and faced with her own childhood memories (fear of having to read or even fear of receiving books at Christmas!), this remedial teacher pushed herself to create a less anxiety-inducing reading atmosphere.
To do this, she designed this recreational educational application of cine-books presenting only one short sentence or segment of sentence per page with large characters. Too often, because books are written with large characters and few words, they are aimed at a group of apprentice readers (beginning readers), so they become irrelevant for students between 9 and 12 years old. The film books in this application are keen to offer content and subjects that are really aimed at young people in this age group, thus preventing them from feeling devalued by reading books that they recognize as being too “babyish”.