[OLPC library] Request for comments on a literacy project

[Carol Farlow Lerche]

*Brief Description
SynPhony* is the nickname for the Multilingual Synthetic Phonics Literacy
Project. The project has been formed to make available a database of over
44,000 words analyzed into their Grapheme Phoneme Correspondences (GPCs) for
the creation of computer-based literacy activities as well as teacher
materials for language learners. The database was compiled by Norbert
Rennert, a researcher at the Canada Institute of Linguistics. An excellent
description of the background that underpins the development of this project
and its database is available on Mr. Rennert's website, *"The Sounds of
English <http://call.canil.ca/english/SynPhony2.html>".*

The initial database consists of English words linked to their parts of
speech, morphology, semantic categories, age of acquisition, frequecy of
use, definitions and sentence examples, the techniques used suit many
languages other than English even better, since their orthography is more
transparent than English.  There is a 10,000 word Spanish database and a
50,000 word German database that will follow the release of the English
database.  Mr. Rennert invites collaboration to produce databases in support
of other languages.

*What We Want to Do with It*
1. Merge images with the database, both automatically and manually with a
provided web interface. (We will start with an automatic inclusion of images
in wikimedia commons that are already linked in entries within wiktionary or
simple.wiktionary, as well as images from the gcompris activities.)
2. Supply an API for use by new and preexisting XO activities that are
literacy related, such as several of the gcompris activities, memory, etc.
Provide a transparent modification to these existing activities so their
vocabulary is broadened.
3. Provide a way to define a sequence of phonemes (and other restrictions,
such as word frequency, syllable count, age of acquisition) matching a
reading curriculum.  Link this curriculum definition into the API so that
activities select the words in teacher-specified way.
4.  Provide a feedback mechanism to record individual student progress.
5.  Provide a way to feed back database enhancements made by users of
SynPhony in a reviewable way so they can be shared.
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