RoyoBlocks
Jonathan Kleiman, Pope Michael, Paulo Blikstein · 2013
One of the cornerstones of early childhood education is literacy education. However, this process is often presented linearly: reading comes first, writing comes second. This neglects the creative capacities of the child until he is fully capable of reading. This paper presents RoyoBlocks, a project that explores literacy learning through a set of tangible wooden word blocks and a plush reading companion. By incorporating wireless technology with traditional childhood toys, RoyoBlocks provide pre-literate leaners an opportunity to practice and hone both their reading and writing skills. In this paper, we discuss the learning processes that informed our design and the subsequent design decisions we made while developing RoyoBlocks.