Unlocking Literacy: A Review of Our Research and Cutting-Edge Digital Learning Platforms for Children

Heikki Lyytinen, Abiy Zewdu Agegnehu, Susan A. Galletly, Hong Li, Nsimbi. C.J. Nshimbi, Christopher Yalukanda & Natalia Louleli

Heikki Lyytinen 
University of Jyväskylä, Department of Psychology, Jyväskylä, Finland 
Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2867-1749 
Email: heikki.j.lyytinen@jyu.fi

Abiy Zewdu Agegnehu 
Hawassa University, Department of English Language and Literature, Ethiopia 

Susan A. Galletly 
Central Queensland University, Australia 

Li Hong 
Beijing Normal University, Faculty of Psychology, Peking, China 

Nshimbi, C.J. 
Centre for Advancement of Literacy and Skill in School (CLASS), Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia 

Christopher Yalukanda 
Centre for Advancement of Literacy and Skill in School (CLASS), Lusaka, Zambia 

Natalia Lauleli, 
Faculty of Education, Universidad de la Rioja, Logroño, Spain 
Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1698-8765 
Email: natalia.louleli@unir.net

Abstract 

This review highlights our research endeavors to empower children to attain full literacy by cultivating their ability to comprehend and interpret written text. By fostering a deep understanding of reading comprehension, we provide students with optimal learning opportunities that equip them with the skills to succeed. Building on the foundation of basic literacy skills, including effective word-reading and word-writing in consistently written alphabetic orthographies, our approach challenges traditional reading acquisition models that have historically been dominated by English-based research. Instead, we focus on developing a more inclusive and globally applicable understanding of literacy that can benefit students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

We propose that basic literacy skills of word-reading and spelling are acquired through associative learning, which is the making of strong connections between spoken and written language units. We demonstrate that the difference between transparent alphabetic writings, such as those found in African local languages, Finnish, Italian, German, and Spanish, and less transparent writings, such as English and Asian morpho logographic orthographies, build overwhelmingly from the size of the written units used in learning, e.g. phonemes versus rimes and whole words, and orthographic complexity. We discuss the Transparent-Opaque Orthography Conundrum, whereby children in nations with highly regular orthographies may have a greater need for focused instruction in building reading comprehension. Possibly, the most important message of our article is its emphasis on Full Literacy (FL) and how to acquire it using digital training games. This is helpful when most literacy-related resources in schools are invested in supporting the acquisition of decoding skills that are insufficient for learning via reading. Reading is an activity children seem not to be any longer interested in (in the developed world) or able (in the underdeveloped world) to use for reaching the goal of reading, as shown by the fall of PISA and PIRLS results. 

Keywords: literacy acquisition, associative learning, digital learning games, reading comprehension, full literacy Global Literacy 

Introduction 

Despite the significant advances in psychological research, there is a lack of focus on how children can learn most effectively. The existing body of research has identified the key factors influencing reading outcomes, yet these findings have not been adequately translated into practical solutions to improve children’s learning. Learning is the foundation of human development, and acquiring academic knowledge is essential for personal and national prosperity, particularly in less developed regions. Given that reading is the primary means by which most academic learning begins from an early age, ensuring that children worldwide develop strong literacy skills is a critical goal. As a result, prioritising literacy education globally is essential to unlock the full potential of future generations.

The widespread availability of the Internet and the ever-cheaper smartphones connected to it, especially in developing countries, have made it more feasible than ever to make us able to train children to reach the main goal of reading, i.e., acquire Full Literacy (FL), comprehend what they read. FL allows both enjoyment and learning via reading. 

In the past, we took the first step towards addressing this issue by developing a digital training tool, GraphoGame (GG), to help children learn to decode text. Initially, we focused on Finnish, a consistently written language, and later expanded to support alphabetic orthographies worldwide (Lyytinen et al., 2007). The international version of GG enables children to acquire basic reading skills, or Basic Literacy, by training themselves to accurately and fluently sound out text. With the widespread availability of the internet and affordable smartphones, especially in developing countries, we can now leverage these technologies to empower children to achieve Full Literacy (FL), which enables both enjoyment and learning through reading.

In this article, we will explore ways to bridge the significant gaps in literacy acquisition between countries and cultures. To achieve this, we will include a focus on the level of orthographic complexity children face in learning to read in different nations and on literacy development we have studied two key groups: learners with dyslexia, who face significant challenges in acquiring Basic Literacy skills (BLs), and illiterate African children and adults who have lacked both BLs and access to reading materials and support to acquire and proceed from the mastery of the decoding skills. We will share our initial success stories in helping these learners take the first step towards Full Literacy, initially mastering decoding (Basic Literacy), then mastering Full Literacy, i.e., effective comprehension and analytical thinking, to provide a broader narrative to illustrate the challenges and opportunities for overcoming these barriers. 

One of the main challenges for building literacy in Sub-Saharan Africa is the lack of access to reading materials written in local languages. To address this, we have developed two innovative digital tools designed to support reading comprehension: ComprehensionGame (CG) and TaleReader (TR). We explain these tools below. 

Our thinking builds from our research using digital learning environments to train literacy skills, including: 

1. GraphoLearn technology, studied for years using the term GG, helps children master Basic Literacy (decoding) skills of letter-sound knowledge, word-reading, and spelling. It is now made commercially available with its original name (GraphoGame) because universities cannot work as distributors. 

2. ComprehensionGame (CG) is a new game-based platform that builds skills for analyzing and comprehending text while also building enthusiasm for reading and empowering knowledge acquisition via reading. As an additional feature, it supports the development of critical reading skills, which are increasingly needed today. CG is language-independent, as it uses texts developed by teachers and others in their local language, making CG accessible to educators and learners worldwide under the guidelines we have published for them. To fully understand how CG works, the implementation of content using so-called Creator software can be learned by playing the game itself. 

The chief task of CG is to motivate children who have the decoding skills to decide whether each sentence of the text (picked, e.g., from a lesson) is True or False and learn to identify the most informative (to be memorized) sentences of the text. Texts are usually made by children’s teachers whom the CG training games guide to implement such sentences to the CG. These sentences summarize lesson-by-lesson the critical to-be-stored contents of the curriculum, building on top of what has recently been taught at school (Lyytinen & Louleli, 2023). Initial results show that CG can effectively empower reading comprehension among illiterate rural adults and children using their local African language, as shown by the study of Nsimbi & Lyytinen (submitted, see draft from the CG pages). We are now working to validate its effectiveness globally. 

3. TaleReader (TR), our newest training environment, is a story-listening-based platform tool designed to replace the need for a highly compromised home literacy environment (HLE) in Sub-Saharan Africa. It models parental reading of stories while supporting children in learning to read words and comprehend the text flow of these words. TR is designed for use with specific individual languages: in the context of this article, we discuss TaleReader’s use with African children. 

TR provides a central element of the earliest literacy development. Children enjoy interesting stories in their home language and are exposed to implicit (and explicit in its special sessions) learning to build Basic Literacy skills. They also simultaneously pursue the goal of reading for meaning. TR thus combines the two crucial steps, decoding and comprehension, empowering children to acquire effective Basic and Full Literacy. It is intended that, over time, TR will be developed for increasingly more languages and orthographies, with its use explored across nations. 

These tools support what we term Global Literacy: a strong focus on making literacy development easy to access and achieve across developing nations. 

Both CG and TR are powerful tools for achieving the goal of global Literacy, i.e., a strong focus on making the development of Full Literacy easy and available across developing nations. We see that this is a major way to help children of poor countries learn knowledge starting from early school years, from which most academic learning had to proceed via reading. 

Both CG and TR run on affordable Android phones, which are widely used by families in developing nations. Increasingly, artificial intelligence (AI) is developing local language versions of the wide range of texts and stories used in TR. Additionally, training to use AI bots for knowledge gathering is included in the goals of the ComprehensionGame. 

We believe these tools have the potential to significantly impact global literacy rates, which had to be quantified based on Full Literacy (not Basic Literacy as done until now). We are excited to share our journey and progress with you. 

Learning Basic Literacy (decoding) is based on associative learning 

Learning requires some consistency between the to-be-connected stimuli. This is easy and apparent when learning to decode transparent writings that are consistent at the grapheme-phoneme level. However, not all orthographies behave as consistently. This means that the learner has to be able to benefit from spoken and written consistent connections. As Ziegler and Goswami (2005) showed, English readers have to use larger units to benefit from consistency. Thus, they propose larger units such as rime units as appropriate for this purpose. For a layperson, a good example is “ing,” which is a sequence of letters that sound the same way in all contexts of written English. 

When the Grapheme-Phoneme Correspondences (GPCs) are consistent in virtually all words the DA is very easy to apply in computer-based learning programs. But it does not mean that DA could not be applied in other kinds of training of reading skills including that leading to FL via CG or TaleReader. 

Identifying and Addressing Reading Difficulties 

To overcome reading challenges, we must first identify the key obstacles that hinder children from developing reading skills. Naturally, the most common bottleneck is ineffective instruction. This is a central problem when children are taught in underdeveloped countries and when the language whose reading has to be learned is complex – not consistent to be easy to learn. This challenge is faced by learners of English, which Ziegler and Goswami (2005) clarified interestingly by pointing to a simple fact illustrating why the basic reading of English is difficult to acquire by typical readers. This is the inconsistency of the connections between spoken and written which differs from consistently written alphabetic writings where the connections of graphemes and phonemes are the same in all contexts of writing. English one finds such consistency only by attending large units such as rimes. And even such connections that work consistently are only a few, failing to cover all the words children had to learn to spell. Only at the word level is full consistency reached. It makes it possible for second-language learners to benefit themselves when they acquire vocabulary by storing the words using their whole-word images to accumulate their vocabulary of English. 

A minimum set of single letter sounds selected to a version of the game – list of their sounds present in > 5% of the occurrence of the letter in English text (Cedex databases, among 17 million words).

Letter	%	of different words	all words	Exemplary word
i	62.3	24076	3471217	I (in)
i	19.4	4386	1083446	aI (i)
i	5.1	2519	283459	i (social)
l	95.4	22272	2934160	l (all)
d	94.4	14990	2844232	d (and)
m	100.0	11176	1817206	m (from)
b	99.0	7726	1169525	b (be)

By examining the process of reading and understanding the difficulties that arise, we can pinpoint the underlying causes of these obstacles. Our research has shown that even children with severe dyslexia can make significant progress when considering environmental factors contributing to their difficulties. In the following sections, we will explore the common causes of severe reading difficulties and effective strategies for overcoming them. 

Solving problems of acquisition of reading skills starting from the most severe one: A Genetic and Environmental Puzzle 

Dyslexia is a problem that involves both genetic and environmental factors. Developmental dyslexia can face children with familial risk for dyslexia and be deeply rooted in brain development. Below, we show how such children have difficulties processing sounds and connecting phonemes to written language. We know that optimal instruction can help overcome reading difficulties, even in children with severe dyslexia. 

Research conducted under the leadership of the first author in Finland, the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia (JLD) (for the latest review of the main results, see Lyytinen, Erskine, Hämäläinen, Torppa & Ronimus, 2015), used advanced techniques including brain imaging and behavioral assessments to study the development of children at familial risk of dyslexia, and a low-risk control group. JLD findings showed that children at familial risk for dyslexia who develop reading difficulties have difficulties differentiating acoustically close sounds to connect these reliably to their letters, which can lead to compromised Basic Literacy skills (Leppänen et al., 2010; Lohvansuu et al., 2021). Later studies run in Finland showed that sufficient drilling of connections between spoken and written language, using the original version of the GG (see Figure 1). The Finnish Ekapeli could help in overcoming these difficulties by revealing compatibility that the items requiring the most drilling were acoustically closest items, ie. connecting the sounds of l, m, and n to those letters (Niemelä et al., 2020). 

The original Ekapeli developed almost 20 years ago (see Lyytinen, Ronimus, Alanko, Poikkeus & Taanila, 2007; Lyytinen, Erskine, Kujala, Ojanen & Richardson, 2009). It was called GG when we made the validation studies of versions implemented for different languages. The results were then summarized by Lyytinen, Semrud-Clikeman, Li, Pugh, and Richardson (2021), revealing its success. Universities such as our University of Jyväskylä, needing to focus on research, could not concentrate on distributing the GG, which had to become commercialized for wider use. Consequently, the term GG is now used solely for the business conducting commercial use of GG, while our research use and further development of programs is termed GraphoLearn, when we continue studying the validity of our training of the decoding skills. The term GG is used below for instances where the program was studied before the commercial arm took on the use of the GG term. 

GG trains only the Basic literacy skills we had, however, to develop new training games for African users for whom it is not enough to help in school learning. We illustrate later in this text these new games are designed to train until FL is reached. The reason for this need is that the environment of Sub-Saharan Africa is not sufficient for allowing children to learn FL even if children happen to be successful enough in learning the Basic Literacy skills (BLs). This is because they do not have interesting reading material to use in their BLs. Therefore, the games have to take care of training children to take both steps: that of BLs and FL. 

Understanding the Mysteries of Dyslexia 

The most severe difficulty that makes reaching FL impossible without efficient treatments is dyslexia. And this bottleneck is naturally the most required to overcome. This is why we had to know under which conditions it appears and how these conditions can be affected to overcome it. 

Understanding the mysteries of dyslexia requires a multifaceted approach that considers biological, environmental, and social factors. The JLD study revealed that developmental dyslexia most likely occurs only among children who have a genetic background. All who faced severe reading problems among the 200 children followed in JLD had familial backgrounds although milder decoding problems can happen also without it. The last has a most likely environmental origin – i.e. insufficient instruction and interest of the learner in practising reading. 

Experimental research can provide convincing answers by varying potential causes and measuring changes in this reading difficulty. This could be made after JLD using Ekapeli as an intervention (independent variable). It revealed, as mentioned, that it is the auditory insensitivity that compromises the acquisition of the decoding skills. Happily drilling the difficult connections between spoken and written language can help them, but most likely, only game-based learning can make drilling tolerable enough to overcome this learning problem. Hundreds of repetitions are too much for any teacher to keep her/his face looking positive to the learner facing this problem. 

We researched the use of Ekapeli in Finland (see Lyytinen et al., 2007; 2009) to help Finnish children overcome difficulties in mastering difficulties they noticed differences between acoustically close phonemes such as those represented by the letters l m and n. There is one other bottleneck which tends to affect Finnish also typical learners. This is the variation of phonemic length affecting the meaning of words such as tuli, tuuli and tulli. These are difficult to learn for almost anyone else but Finnish people who have become sensitized to make such differentiation from birth. This was shown in the JLD empirically (Richardson, 1998 (dissertation). 

By studying these two types of contrast experimentally Finnish researchers were able to observe and document the effects of this intervention through both behavioral assessments and brain activity measurements (Lovio et al., 2012). We believe speech perception problems are a central factor contributing to dyslexia-related difficulties, which become particularly evident in situations where auditory demands are high. Our research has identified several approaches and strategies that can aid in identifying and addressing reading difficulties, including most notably, the Dynamic Assessment (DA) feature, which is particularly effective in both identifying and treating learning-related problems. It can be used with all our digital learning games. 

A Dynamic Assessment Approach and Support 

In the context of this article, we use the term Dynamic Assessment to mean computer-based monitoring of children’s learning successes and errors, with instruction then modified by the computer program, changing so that instruction is tailored precisely to meet the child’s current, immediate learning needs. By integrating assessment and treatment simultaneously, this approach allows for continuous monitoring of progress and immediate support. When initiated early and effectively, Dynamic Assessment is effective for identifying, e.g., Finnish children at risk of Basic Literacy difficulties at school entry. In African studies, it has been found effective in identifying children with dyslexia who need strategically tailored instruction via digital training games and Dynamic Assessment these can provide and are unlikely to learn to master effective literacy using usual school instruction. 

Many studies have shown the Response to Intervention (RTI) approach to be effective in identifying and addressing learning difficulties. However, in traditional RTI methods, intervention is unfortunately usually not immediate. Being delayed, sometimes for weeks or until the next semester, can hinder progress and lead the learner to experience a very stressful life. Games applying the DA approach provide immediate tailored support and targeted help precisely when it’s needed, in many ways epitomizing RTI used with the strongest effect. 

Dynamic Assessment monitors the learner’s effectiveness in learning (storing connections between the spoken sounds and written letters and words), tracks progress as the learner is moved from familiar items to more complex ones and organizes for the learner to experience as many repetitions as are needed to achieve effective learning, and reliable long-term memory storage of learned concepts, to be achieved. It offers immediate help that’s precisely what is needed, diagnosing difficulties in real-time, and simultaneously providing needed intervention. And most importantly, it is not the training to decode where the digital learning games can apply DA. The CG can apply it comparably for the support of efficiently acquiring FL. 

Keeping Learners Engaged 

Maintaining learner engagement is crucial for any learning and easy to maintain in game-based training. Most children find learning using computer-game contexts engaging. In addition, for effective game-based learning, it’s essential to organize learning in such a way that the player does not experience repeated failures, which can lead to frustration and disengagement. In a computer game, after a few failed trials, this can be managed by providing positive feedback and reinforcement, which encourages learners to continue playing and motivates them to improve their skills. GG uses visual and auditory cues to provide a range of positive feedback options to keep learners engaged, e.g., see Figure 3, an illustration of the traditional form of the game. 

Timing and Early Identification 

Timing is critical in identifying and addressing learning difficulties. Our studies have shown that the optimal time for the prevention of word-reading and spelling problems, i.e., Basic Literacy difficulties, is to start the use of GG and Dynamic Assessment during the days when the child enters school. 

Early identification can of course be achieved at a much younger age, e.g., the JLD study revealed that risk factors for dyslexia can be identified just days after birth, using neonatal screening of auditory perceptual skills (see Figure 4). However, while early identification is useful, there are powerful advantages when support is provided when the brain is as mature as possible to succeed in benefiting from training but at the same time keeping in mind that the child is not experiencing being a less good learner as her/his classmates. This means that it is enough to start reading instruction when entering school to help even at-risk children acquire word reading and spelling during the first weeks of school, using GraphoLearn and Dynamic Assessment, which is a powerfully effective combination. 

It’s powerful to start the development of skills associated with written language when children’s brains have matured to an appreciable level, preferably at approximately seven years, and also close to the time when learning to read and write begins. GL’s simple, highly effective and accurate methods quickly and easily identify difficulties and immediately provide the needed targeted support precisely at the time it’s needed. 

Our studies have shown that to be effective at the time of school entry and learning to read, GL’s use must be carefully tailored as regards its frequency of use. Short sessions several times per day work best, with no longer than 15 minutes, and with children having breaks of at least an hour between sessions. Children benefit best if sessions continue on consecutive days until Basic Literacy skills of letter-sound knowledge, word-reading and spelling are mastered for their regular orthography. In many nations, this mastery of Basic Literacy means children have adult-level accuracy for word reading and spelling, then, over time, develop speed and fluency. 

Importantly, for all languages and orthographies, our research has shown it is important to avoid pushing or coercing children to play, which means pauses of days and weeks are sometimes needed. Play-based learning, with children engaged and motivated, is a key aspect of GL success. 

Multiple factors indicate the need for and value of using GG. Firstly, we consider the child’s familial background, as a history of dyslexia can increase the risk of developing the condition. Secondly, we pay attention to delays in spoken language development, particularly in receptive language skills (see Figures 5 and 6). In addition, and perhaps most importantly, we observe how the child stores and recalls letter names, using GL at the start of school, as difficulties with this skill can be a strong early indicator of the likelihood of a child facing difficulties in learning Basic reading skills. In Finland, we have observed that if children have not already spontaneously learned letter names by the time they start school in first grade, that is a very reliable indicator of the need for Ekapeli (GL). Figure 7 reveals how letter naming is a much more accurate predictor than any other early measure collected during the JLD study. But as Figure 6 reveals the most serious risk is based on the combination of familial background and delay in both receptive and expressive language delay. This combination was too much for Finnish remedial education and all the attention the families received during the study to help the then-available remediation lead to success. It is important to note that Ekapeli could be designed only after JLD children had reached the critical school age.

Preventive Measures Before School Age 

To prepare for the possibility that a child may need support with basic reading skills, it’s essential to monitor three key factors before school age. First, consider the child’s familial background, as a history of dyslexia can increase the risk of developing the condition. Second, pay attention to delays in spoken language development, particularly in receptive language skills. Finally, observe how the child stores and recalls letter names, as difficulties with this skill can be an early indicator of dyslexia (Lyytinen, Ronimus, Alanko, Poikkeus & Taanila, 2007; Lyytinen et al., 2006; Leppänen et al., 2010; Louleli et al., 2020; 2022, Lyytinen & Louleli, 2023a; 2023b). This is observable most easily in the content of the Ekapeli-type training game whose use started in the wide sense in Finland during 2007. 

Figure 7 illustrates in a deep-diving way the connections of the development of the spoken language with the steps of learning to master the written language. The acquisition of Basic Literacy is connected to relatively late developmental steps of spoken language quite late, while the acquisition of Full Literacy (as reflected by the PISA results) has its starting points already in early language development. The early speakers reach Full Literacy earlier and more likely than other children. This means that the need for CG training is more likely needed by children whose language orientation is less dominant and who, therefore, are less likely to be interested in reading than other children. 

The Role of Digital Tools for Literacy Acquisition in Finland and Outside 

Our approach is grounded in traditional learning theory, implemented successfully by the first author using GL (for a review of our related studies, see Lyytinen et al., 2021). Studies using GL consistently show that associative learning is crucial to understanding reading acquisition. The results demonstrate that GL-based training can effectively teach Basic Literacy skills very quickly to typical learners in consistently writing environments, often needing less than a few hours of playing time if the use is distributed optimally. Learners of fully transparent writing systems, such as Finnish, can acquire Basic Literacy skills remarkably quickly, with typical school beginners often being highly accurate within minutes and many with learning difficulties being highly accurate after a few hours of playing. 

GL has also been used successfully to train early learners of less consistent French (Lassault, et al., 2022), and highly inconsistent English (Kyle et al., 2013) also, including those with atypical learning needs (Ahmed et al., 2020). For reading acquisition of English orthography the gains resulting from using the GL are not as fast as those made in studies of consistent-orthography readers. Whereas GL often progresses consistent-orthography children to very high, adult levels of word-reading and spelling accuracy, with children learning to read English making slower progress, GL is continued until children reach the level of skills of their classmates: this for English children, represents significant gains, with them now rescued from the ongoing severe difficulties, many English readers experience across all school years. 

GL has also been developed for Asian nations’ highly consistent beginner orthographies: China’s Pinyin, Taiwan’s Zhuyin, and Japan’s Hiragana. It has not been developed for those nations’ complex morphologographic orthographies. 

Basic Literacy is necessary but not sufficient for achieving Full Literacy 

To acquire Full Literacy naturally, children must start reading materials they judge as interesting. We could call these materials leisure reading. No one reads leisure materials that one would not understand what it tells them. 

However, not all children with basic literacy skills read, not even leisure materials. They require additional support. Surprisingly, school instruction only supports reading comprehension in a few countries, even in the developed world. This may be because in the “old world,” children started to read soon after learning the Basic Literacy skills sufficient for starting leisure reading. And this naturally was enough. But in today’s world, this is not so common. Even in Finland, whose children have collected the highest PIRS and PISA scores, such a reduction has been observed during the last ten or so years, which has already been observed also in school learning which is based so much on reading comprehension. 

This all has made the first author realize that children need extra support to build Full Literacy skills (strong reading comprehension and skills for thinking analytically about the texts they read). Therefore, he has designed the demand characteristics and paid for and coordinated the programming of the ComprehensionGame (CG) to train Full Literacy to all its users. 

In the less developed world, the unavailability of leisure reading materials has continued to keep most Sub-Saharan African people as compromised readers. Other features also contribute to this result in those countries. Surprisingly, most statistics illustrating a reading situation in Africa are built to inform about Basic Literacy levels only, which is irrelevant because even a very good decoding skill fails to guarantee academic learning in the schools. 

Two of the present authors’ studies in rural Zambia (Comba and Lyytinen, described below) showed two important findings. The first finding was that illiterate village children with GL training for Cinyaca, their local language, mastered Basic Literacy effectively, but this did not improve their academic learning results at school. The second finding was that ComprehensionGame made a strong difference in children’s academic learning, evidenced by significantly improved academic results. 

We believe CG is a powerful tool for empowering literacy development. It is important in more affluent nations, e.g., Finland, where PISA results show declining reading comprehension. Its potential for use in developing nations is enormous, e.g., where local language leisure materials are lacking to help reach full literacy at the time. The first author tries to make CG freely available for use without charge in poor countries, hoping to get the financial resources he has spent from the users in rich countries. It is designed to help effectively with inexpensive phones, which are now used widely by families in developing nations. 

However, while CG is a useful and powerful tool, it requires that the user already have Basic Literacy skills. The TaleReader is designed to build children’s Basic plus Full Literacy skills from a young age by providing them with early childhood literacy enrichment. Seeing this dual-advantage potential, the first author is now organizing data collection in several Sub-Saharan countries, especially in rural areas, to determine if it is sufficient to help children reach the mentioned goals. 

TaleReader is a motivating, engaging, and powerful learning tool that African children can use independently without adult intervention. This complete tool can elevate school learning substantially among children whose families currently have no access to reading materials but do have an Android device and TaleReader. 

The original support tool of the Basic skill, GL (GG) requires considerable initial development for each written language, which takes time, effort, and money for the salaries of those developing it. The TaleReader can replace GL/GG because implementing it to support the acquisition of Basic reading skills can be done locally by following the guidelines given to the local teachers and/or parents. TaleReader is a potentially effective tool and resource for achieving literacy worldwide, particularly for learners whose Home Literacy Environment has few or no reading materials and where it can replace parents who are not able to read to their children. 

A simple theory of how to support readiness to comprehend written language to reach full literacy using digital training tools 

A most important aspect of attending to helping poor countries is how well inhabitants can learn knowledge to help themselves and their nations. Thus, knowledge learning plays a very important role in such development. The most central aspect of jumping out from poverty would be the elevation of academic learning, which is centrally based on reading skills – not only on listening instructions of teachers. Full literacy (FL) only can guarantee academic learning. The most natural way to acquire FL is to apply decoding skills to start reading leisure materials. Such material can suck children to read when the content is interesting enough. As soon as the first most interesting books have been read, comprehension strategies have developed to the level at which reading lessons will be successful without stress. 

It looks now, however, that the world has changed from the time when, e.g., Finnish children achieved very good PISA results, which most likely was a result of interest in reading common among the majority of children – not like today when only girls continue reading as revealed by many cues and e.g. the Finnish school learning results revealed by the national assessment body of school learning. Today, reading especially for boys is no longer happening, and PISA results have been falling for more than 10 years now in many countries. The school achievements have been falling comparably as shown by the Finnish Agency paid to follow the results of school learning. 

In the developing world, no leisure reading material for reading is available. In many developing countries, there is a lack of leisure reading materials available for reading. Thus, it is not possible to motivate children to read. The Bible is not enough for this purpose. And therefore, only a few can have full literacy skills, e.g., in Africa. This is why we concentrate on the development of training tools for them, which are needed today also in countries such as Finland, which used to have reading children with good PISA results. 

Most of the research concerning reading comprehension (RC) has focused on the concepts and factors related to RC, but not training the skills and strategies needed to comprehend texts. Very little has been made for learning to understand how to train children to acquire full literacy. However, it would be required now when this is no longer happening naturally as it could in developed countries. If children follow the old habit of starting reading after they have learned Basic Literacy (i.e., decoding). They will not read interesting materials if they do not comprehend what they tell them. Most of the teaching resources have been used for guaranteeing the acquisition of Basic Literacy anticipating this is enough – as it has been. But it seems not to be enough anymore. 

It looks like the world would require researchers to start studying how to stop the fall of PIRLS and PISA results, which has been happening in many countries according to PISA results (see Figure 8). This is very serious because, at least in Finland, it has also been shown to have started to reduce school learning, as mentioned above. In the figure, the falls of PISA results are shown between the two last assessment points. It reveals that the falling is an acute process that may continue. There is no reason why children would move their attention back to reading after they have preferred, e.g., computer playing, which is the most likely reason, especially among boys. Also, the use of social media, which may be more common among girls, does not comparably require mastery of good reading strategies. But it is also common in many countries that the fall of girls’ PISA results has been smaller. 

The goal of research we need now should be to attempt to find effective interventions. Something like this has been tried in many countries by focusing on increasing interest in reading. But at least in Finland rewarding children for reading has not been successful. Thus, a more realistically effective intervention had to be found to directly support learners in approaching written language to reach an equal level of comprehension of written language as they understand spoken language. This is attempted below by finding the simplest possible way to try. We have also tried to document that our training games to elevate RC are effective – before even proposing these for any wider use. 

Comprehension of both spoken and written language is associated with background knowledge of the to-be comprehended content. Both ways of comprehending language have the same conditions. None specifically instructs comprehension of spoken language and the same has been the case concerning written language until now when many children have stopped reading interesting written content. 

To comprehend written language, one has to comprehend the same content when it is given orally using one’s spoken language. The concepts used in the text to be comprehended have to be known. Often this is defined by speaking about background knowledge. For instructing reading comprehension then the most natural context is school learning. It makes steps from earlier learning according to the curriculum. If FL is supported in the context of lessons, the background knowledge is guaranteed and also the spoken instruction of teachers can support it. 

An appropriate way to elevate reading comprehension is to instruct the needed strategies in the context of learning lessons in school. It can be started at the age when the learner can fluently decode written language. We should be able to train it following the way reading comprehension proceeds naturally. In a training game, the player has to be helped to attend to the key content as one does when reading an interesting leisure book. The most concrete example is a detective story. Readers’ full attention is focused on identifying the murderer. One of the ways the use of the training game has been motivated in the play pages is to offer a detective story (Wolf Killer) for reading. All who can easily identify the killer do not need further training. Our experience has shown that children who read leisure books can usually also identify the killer easily. 

The digital learning game designed for training FL is called ComprehensionGame (CG). It is recommended to apply it for learning lessons. For any academic learning, one must comprehend the knowledge s/he is acquiring. Without full comprehension, the written knowledge is not open to be stored for later use. 

 The main method of elevating comprehension is teaching an appropriate strategy for approaching the text. This strategy means focusing on the key contents, i.e., the most informative sentences of the lesson, to help the learner understand that not all words or sentences of the lesson are equally important. 

The amount of text that can be handled in the working memory is limited to 5-7 sentences. These limits should not be exceeded to make learning possible. Knowledge is typically stored by handling it in the working memory until it has been moved to long-term memory to be saved to permanent storage. 

Writing systems differ in how comprehension via reading can work. Any comprehension typically requires intentional attention. The decoding of fully transparent alphabetic writings can be learned fluently without any intentional attention to the meaningful contents of the sequences of letters. Chinese writing represents another end. The smallest meaningful units of language, morphemes, play a central role in learning to decode Chinese. This means that at least the comprehension of words to be read is necessary. 

Effective reading comprehension can be defined as readiness to follow the main meaning of larger wholes, e.g. the story or lesson. Therefore, sentences comprise an appropriate minimal level of comprehension. But even there it is true that not all sentences are equal. One has to learn to identify the most informative sentences to fully understand, e.g., the story/lesson. This is very important if the purpose of reading is to learn the content of the text such as the lessons of school books. 

Mostly reading comprehension is acquired naturally via reading leisure books. Even small children can learn to apply optimal strategy without being aware of that. They simply want to know what happens in the story, and this cannot be followed without comprehension of what the story is telling her/him. 

Thus, problems of text comprehension when a reader can understand it when given orally, result from insufficient natural reading of interesting contents, which opens the way to read with comprehension. This opening happens naturally without any “teaching” or intentional practising. This has most likely happened throughout the history of reading. It is only during recent years when other “hobbies! – most likely digital games – has started to take a larger and more significant portion of the available free time learners have for hobbies. Many children no longer read outside school, which is most likely an explanation for the fall in PIRLs and PISA results. Only a few countries have invented effective means of stopping this fall, although attempts have been made. For example, in Finland, reading diplomas and even ice cream rewards have been tried with not-so-good results. 

If we end up believing that reading interesting material is the only way to reach sufficient readiness to comprehend written language, we are in problems with children who do not have any access to such interesting reading material. This is the case in Africa. Accordingly, African children would be doomed to fail to learn to comprehend written language. This is why we must have another way to guide them to reach readiness to understand written language. 

The first author believes that there may be two ways to help African children to comprehend written material. 

1. CG can replace the reading of interesting reading material if applied according to the ways listed above. However, there is a problem with using CG. It requires that learners’ teachers implement the appropriate content. This may be difficult because the readiness of many African teachers to implement appropriate content may be insufficient. For that, we have developed digital learning environments using which teachers can train themselves to write appropriate implementations.
2. An optimal way to reach the goal of reading (ie. learning the content of the text by reading) is to organize the initial instruction of the reading skill having this goal in mind. For this purpose, the first author has developed a digital tool called TaleReader. 

If a child’s first serious contact with written language is organized in such a way that s/he notes what one can enjoy by reading, her/his first step towards reaching the goal has already been taken. Thus, if the home literacy environment (HLE) is good enough, this may happen naturally when a parent reads exciting stories to the child. If the reading parent happens to understand that by showing, e.g. by finger, the word s/he is reading when the text is sounded to the child, it may happen, that the child who is listening and looking at the story, succeeds without explicit attention, to acquire the decoding skills at the same time s/he is primarily attending the proceeding redline of the story and fully understanding what is happening in the story. Thus, the whole reading career up to full literacy can in principle happen very early. If we attend emergent readers, most of them have learned to read very early via good HLE which contains sufficient parental reading exciting stories to the child from early on. 

The TaleReader application tries to work like a parent to create also to African children a sufficient home literacy environment. The core philosophy behind its design is rooted in realism. It should be open 

1. to reach practically everyone. This is possible if it works in the devices families use to own cheap Android phones. 
2. to work in whatever African languages. This is possible because parents and teachers can implement the stories. In case the parent is unable to read we have tools to create stories for children. Soon, the creation of stories is possible using almost whatever language using artificial intelligence (AI). AI not only helps in making the stories work in languages but also 
3. to produce speaking and writing in each of the languages because the main need for making the training effective is to have the spoken and written to proceed in synchronized ways (like the parent would point by finger the point where s/he is reading). 

Everyone who uses the CG long enough will most likely become quite an efficient reader. The same may eventually happen to TR users in Africa if we/local people have implemented enough interesting content for reading to African children using their language. 

Conclusions 

All this requires further experimentation before we can be convinced that this scenario works via Android devices as well. It works when the parent and/or teacher is doing the same thing. What is anyway important to understand is that the local parents and teachers cannot do it without advice. And this advice cannot be organized in traditional ways by sending experts e.g. to Africa to tell some elite teachers how to do it. 

While we have seen this scenario work successfully when implemented by parents and teachers directly, further experimentation is needed to ensure it is equally effective on Android devices. Crucially, local parents and teachers cannot undertake this process without guidance, and it’s essential to understand that advising cannot be facilitated through traditional means, such as sending experts to Africa to instruct elite teachers on how to implement it. 

Today we have the internet. Via the Internet, we can send all this information and the training tools to be distributed to children. But this fails without local teachers and advisors. Thus, we must have a private firm in each country which in collaboration with us and the local Ministry of Education (ME) organizes the distribution in practice and is open to providing help when needed. This private firm must have well-informed people. The writers of this article are such. We hope that together with the first author we will succeed. 

This all is now under trying. It is happening now in Zambia where the first author has colleagues whom he has supervised to PhD level to understand how reading acquisition can be supported. In Zambia, we already have a firm (Centre for Advancement of Literacy and Skill in School (CALSS) that is preparing the distribution and is under training to become able to answer any questions users may have. 

After the working mode has been initially developed and tested in Zambia, we move to Ethiopia, where one of the authors is prepared to take his turn next. In Finland, we have a young student who is under training to become able to try it in a new environment, Ghana, so that we can collect experiences on how to slowly start distributing it to all poor countries. All this is planned to happen so that the games will be free in those countries. We hope the developing agencies understand that this, in the end, maybe the only way the literacy levels can be elevated in poor countries. It has failed for hundreds of years when vast amounts of financial support have been used for that. Now we believe that the end can be made very cheaply. But it is only because we now have new technology, such as artificial intelligence, which we did not have earlier. It may also be helpful that we have the described games whose background is based on tens of years of reading research starting from the one which opened the mystery of dyslexia. It required 10 years of follow-up of children with familial risk for dyslexia and their comparison to the development of typical children from birth to reading age. Thus, it shows that today, research can start helping people in a massive sense. And this will happen if our goal to have our support distributed to all poor countries is successful. The total amount of funding needed for that is very little compared to the amount spent unsuccessfully to reach the same goal. But at the time of writing this, we have not yet received a penny.

Possibly a warning is in place concerning the use of the illustrated applications in the smartphones. In Africa where the use most likely happens in the family’s phone at home, in the developed world most children start to have their phones. It is not recommended to use the games in the school. This is because we do not propose the use of phones in the school and the possibility of concentrating optimally on learning via games is not optimal in a noisy environment. This is why home is the best environment to use our learning games on the side of making lessons where the reading of the lesson from the schoolbook is the first step. By using the ComprehensionGame learners can finalize their learning of the lesson. They can have all important contents stored in their memory before the game is over if the implementation of the content has been made according to the guidelines we have given.

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