Problem
Many Filipino children reach Grade 4 without reading a short paragraph fluently, and a Grade 2 teacher with 45 pupils can listen to each child read aloud for only a few minutes a month. Parents want to help at home, but many work long shifts or are unsure how to correct English pronunciation. Reading assessments happen on paper twice a year, too late to change anything that term.
Solution
Bigkas Reads listens as a child reads a short levelled story aloud on a parent's phone, detects skipped, misread and hesitated words in Filipino or English, and replies with gentle prompts. Each week the teacher sees words correct per minute for every child and the sounds the class is struggling with. Stories download in advance, so practice works without data after setup.
Target market
Public and private elementary schools, local governments and reading programmes in the Philippines, which has around 13 million elementary pupils; Indonesia and Vietnam would follow.
Business model
Free for families; schools and local governments would pay per pupil per year (around ₱120), with deployments sponsored by companies' education programmes.
