Across the globe, more than 1.5 billion children1 are at home due to school closures, in an effort to control the COVID-19 outbreak. It’s a difficult time for everyone. As Ministries of Education, educators, parents and all of us continue to grapple with this situation, there will be a significant impact on underserved communities.
But we are all in this together and Pratham Books’ StoryWeaver is here with you.
Books are a wonderful way to escape into another world -- one filled with runaway pigs, sparrow detectives, and grandmothers building amazing machines. They’re also a gateway to learning about the wonders of science, the logic of mathematics, and to discovering new places and culture. And stories infuse us with a sense of wonder about the natural world, they celebrate diversity, and question stereotypes.
Wherever you are, settle down with a book - StoryWeaver has more than 19,500 storybooks to choose from in 235 languages, which you can read online and on your phone. You can download, print PDFs, and save the storybooks to read offline - all for free.
Start with ‘The Novel Coronavirus: We Can Stay Safe’, which features 7 well-loved Pratham Books’ characters who are here to help with practical tips on staying safe during the pandemic. Read and download it for free in multiple languages on StoryWeaver.
Here are some more ways that you can use StoryWeaver:
The Reading Programme is an easy-to-use, curated collection of books, themes and activities, tailored to suit the learning needs of children from Grades 1 to 8. Sign up for free and help children fall in love with books and reading!
The STEM Reading Lists have a collection of storybooks that spark curiosity and interest in children to explore concepts related to science, math and technology.
The Reading Lists are carefully curated thematic collections of storybooks and are available in English, French, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil with books for beginner, middle and advanced readers.
The Readalongs are audio-visual storybooks that early readers can listen to as they learn to read. These books have subtitles that mirror the audio narration of the story, which help children build language acquisition skills.
StoryWeaver’s English and Hindi YouTube channels have delightful, artfully narrated video stories to engage children and nurture their thinking and imagination.
Explore StoryWeaver’s local language digital libraries that are available in 235 languages, including:
- Asia: Assamese, Bahasa Indonesia, Bangla (Bangladesh), Basa Jawa, Bengali, Farsi, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Nepali, Tamil, Telugu, Tibetan, Urdu, Vietnamese
- Europe: French, Italian, Macedonian, Spanish, Serbian (Latin Script)
- Africa: Afrikaans, Amharic, Chinyanja, Igbo, isiXhosa, isiZulu, Kiswahili, Luganda, Yoruba
- North America: Chatino, Mixe, Triqui, Zapoteco
StoryWeaver is rooted in the philosophy of open licensing, and we believe that this is a way to provide all children with the access to joyful reading resources. Content on StoryWeaver is openly licensed under the Creative Commons 4.0 license, and is available in multiple formats like PDF, video stories, audio stories.
There are several other wonderful libraries that you could browse - Global Digital Library, Let’s Read Asia, Literacy Cloud, Bloom to name a few. If you are looking for more distance learning solutions, here is a comprehensive list shared by UNESCO.
Keep calm, stay safe and #ReadAtHomeWithStoryWeaver.
Get in touch
Do share your ‘read at home’ moments with us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter using #ReadAtHomeWithStoryWeaver, and inspire our community! For any enquiries, please write to us at [email protected].