BrookieKids, a local educational technology startup, has recently launched a groundbreaking digital library featuring over 50 Mandarin voice-interactive stories. The library will grow with the monthly release of new stories.
Through these engaging, animated tales, children can converse verbally with the stories, boosting their conversational skills and Mandarin language proficiency in a fun and interactive way. Questions are posed in every story, and the speech AI captures children’s verbal responses, guiding the story’s direction based on their choices. The stories, available through the mobile application BrookieKids (short for Bilingual Rookies), aim to provide more opportunities for preschoolers and lower primary students aged 3 to 8 years old to engage in playful and meaningful conversations in Mandarin from their homes.
Speaking about the platform, Founder of BrookieKids, Melissa Ng, said:
Many Singaporean parents recognize the importance of raising bilingual children from a young age, as language capabilities will have the most rapid development. As a parent, I know how difficult it is to balance the demands of daily life, so it would be good to have an easy-to-use resource that parents can tap into for building language skills. I know from feedback that what parents appreciate most about BrookieKids, is how it enables their children to speak and interact in Mandarin— something that can be challenging to provide at home.
BrookieKids’ new Speech AI-powered digital library was developed with NTU’s Confucius Institute. It is based on the Institute’s preschool Mandarin curriculum, acquired by over 500 preschools across Singapore. Its interactive content, developed in collaboration with NTU’s expert curriculum team, provides parents convenient access to high-quality Mandarin information consistent with local learning requirements.
Director of the Confucius Institute at NTU, Dr Neo Peng Fu, stated:
We are excited to partner with BrookieKids on this pilot project, bringing stories from our library to life creatively and interactively. By adapting these stories for a new generation, we’re helping children learn their mother tongue through fun and interactive storytelling, which makes language learning more enjoyable.
According to Melissa, Physical interaction between adult caregivers and children remains essential and is the ideal way to support learning. However, technology can also be thoughtfully integrated to enrich the quality of interactions and enhance language exposure at home. By blending Speech AI with captivating, animated stories, we aim to create a fun and engaging environment where children can listen and speak more in Mandarin. These are both critical skills for building a strong foundation in language proficiency during the early years.
BrookieKids, founded by Melissa Ng, a former banker and mother of one, empowers children and parents by tapping into their inbuilt curiosity and building a nurturing atmosphere where everyone can learn and grow together. The platform, formally established in 2021 and backed by the Enterprise SG Startup Founder grant, NUS Enterprise, and NTUitive, believes that the best products have been tested and developed based on real user feedback. That is why it has prioritized involving parents and children in all stages of product development.
Currently, BrookieKids can be downloaded on both the Apple Appstore and Google Playstore. It offers a handful of free voice-interactive stories. Parents can access the full library through a monthly or annual subscription.
