Description
PENpal is a device that plays back audio when it touches our audio-enabled bilingual books giving a multisensory reading experience. Each PENpal can read over 1700 books and posters, and this list is always growing as new publications are launched. (Note that PENpal is not compatible with Chromebooks. Audio files must be transferred from a Windows PC or Mac)
The books are all in dual language, so PENpal will play back audio every time it touches a page – in English or in a choice of over 60 languages.
When you purchase a PENpal, you also get access to a free course with plenty of instruction-videos and notes, so you can make the most of your pens and get started quickly.
One final attribute is that PENpal is also a microphone. Unlike many microphones, PENpal is portable and saves the recordings inside its 8GB (expandable to 16GB) memory. Each recording is assigned to a specific barcode. There are over 4000 unique barcode stickers for you to record your voice onto, and PENpal will play back your voice every time you touch the sticker. To play back you do not have to go sequentially through hours of recordings: just touch the sticker and listen immediately to the recording you made.
PENpal is a great companion for children 3 and up. Children who can’t yet read can easily touch the pages of a book to hear the story, and in many different languages! The removable silicone sleeve can be cleaned and helps to protect the PENpal from smaller bumps. Our “Let’s Go” series is fun and durable, providing small children with hours of exploration and discovery as “tap around to hear the sound” and listen to different sounds from the farm, park, or high street all around the pages. For vocabulary support, our Bilingual Talking Dictionary has over 650 commonly used words, all with images and sentences to help even early learners.
PENpal is a flexible, portable device with great potential for both classroom and personal use. For mainstream teachers, it represents an excellent tool for group work and a fun way for pupils to add contextual detail and notes to printed materials, and outside of the education environment it can be both fascinating and comforting for a young child to hear stories and information in their own voice, or that of a friend or relative.
