Scholastic Partners with SoapBox Labs

Scholastic, the children's publishing, education, and media company, has partnered with SoapBox Labs to voice enable its future reading products.

SoapBox Labs' artificial intelligence-based speech engine is built to recognize children's voices and diagnose reading fluency.

Ready4Reading, a new foundational skills curriculum, is Scholastic's first reading product to leverage SoapBox technology and will be available to U.S. schools this summer.

Through Scholastic's voice-enabled tools powered by SoapBox, young students use their voices to independently practice reading aloud while building confidence as they learn. Educators gain actionable, real-time feedback to personalize and target instructional time.

"SoapBox has developed a unique speech engine and shares the same values as Scholastic, including a deep commitment to designing equitable technology that serves all children.  We both understand the challenge educators face supporting the literacy development of every child. We're eager to unlock the power of voice in early reading instruction with the launch of SoapBox powered Ready4Reading, and many more programs to come," said Rose Else-Mitchell, president of Scholastic Education Solutions, in a statement.

"It is incredibly exciting for SoapBox to be partnering with such an iconic and respected brand as Scholastic. Scholastic and SoapBox have a shared vision of the potential of speech technology to be truly impactful, not only for improving foundational reading skills of young children in the classroom, but also to create engaging, fun and rewarding voice experiences for kids at home," said SoapBox CEO Martyn Farrows in a statement.