Family Story Play is a system that supports grandparents to read books together with their grandchildren over the Internet. The Story Play project is designed to improve communication across generations and over a distance, and to support parents and grandparents in fostering the literacy development of young children.
The interface encourages active child participation in the book reading experience by combining a paper book, a sensor-enhanced frame, video conferencing technology, and video content of a Sesame Street Muppet (Elmo). These Story Play features are intended to improve child engagement in long-distance communication and increase the quality of interaction between young children and distant grandparents. Family Story Play also encourages dialogic reading styles that are linked with literacy development.
The Story Play project addresses the hypothesis that there is a synergy between young children’s education—in this case, a rich shared reading experience—and communication with long-distance family. Our goal is to create new kinds of toys and tools that support creativity, learning, and family togetherness. Read the full Tech Report.
