Introduction
For this venture report, I decided to examine the investment potential of an App called Joy Reader. We started to use this App just this year in our elementary school system, mostly for children who are learning Mandarin as a second language. As a Chinese language teacher, I understand how this product can benefit students when they are acquiring the language through listening, speaking and reading in an interactive manner. Yet I would like to analyze this business venture from various perspectives, such as the administrators; whether this product is worth investing from their point of view.
About the Companies
The Joy Reader App was established by a company named Wawa Yaya and this brand focuses on children’s education and was established in 2000 under a Singapore based Chinese company named Creative Knowledge LTD. Creative Knowledge is a high-tech enterprise and professional service organization that has been focusing on digital education for more than 20 years. Its research centers in Singapore, Guangzhou and Beijing have had technical breakthroughs on voice recognition system, an on-line language evaluation model and interactive technology for education purposes.
About the Product
Joy Reader is a digital library of children's picture storybooks offered throughout Asia. It has interactive features to help young learners engage in reading stories, as well as listening to the audios and games to enhance their speaking ability. It is a reading App for young learners who are learning Mandarin. The App is compatible on iPad (ios) and I - phones, as well as all android phones and tablets. The App contains 1500 Chinese stories, and more stories are added on a monthly basis that are categorized in themes for their thematic approach. Students can go to topic categories they are interested in and read books that are related to the genre. The App also provides English stories (500) for young readers.
Here are the interactive features in Joy Reader:
(1) Read-to- me feature: For students who do not recognize Chinese characters well enough to read, this function helps them listen to the story and match the words accordingly.
(2) Learn the pronunciations: Students can tap on words and listen to how the words are pronounced. The other option is the phonetic guide.
(3) Learn the vocabulary: the bilingual dictionary is embedded in Joy Reader. Students can learn new vocabulary, as well as how to write them. The interactive writing feature can teach students how to write Chinese characters by displaying animated videos that show strokes and sequences.
(4) Let’s talk feature: In this feature, students will have to answer questions given by a mock-interviewer.
(5) Monitoring features: Teachers are able to monitor student’s learning progress by looking at the quantity of books read and the completion of reading assignments.
What is great about Joy Reader?
(a) The books are organized by reading levels. There are 10 levels ranging from level A (beginning Mandarin) to level K (advance reader). Students are able to read books according to their language level and it is convenient for teachers and parents to monitor student’s progress as they go.
(b) Books are categorized by various topics such as fairy tale, nature, series books and outdoor activities. Students are able to choose the topics they are interested in and read about them.
(c) Interactive features that help students enhance their Chinese language skills.
(d) Reading comprehension quizzes to help teachers understand if students really know the story.
Is Joy Reader worth investing in?
CUBE analysis
I will be using the CUBE method to analyze Joy Reader to see whether this business venture is worth investing in for not just the educators, but also school administrators.
1. Type of Market: public schools (K-12)
Since Joy Reader is a reading App targeting young language learners, the product would work best in a school system where students are learning Mandarin as a second language.
2. Type of Offering: content and infrastructure
Joy Reader has multiple partners ranging from public schools to textbook publishers who develop the content of books. It also provides online content as they have an online dictionary for users to look up words they are not familiar with. Joy Reader also has a learning management system, where teachers can keep track of students’ progress and students are able to share their opinions about books online by videotaping themselves and sharing it on the platform.
3. Who is the Buyer: Learning bought for learners.
Joy Reader would probably be purchased mostly by parents for their children to practice the language or by a school administrator to support the school’s language program.
4. Global Target:
Since this is a language learning App, any country that has the need of supporting Mandarin learning would be the target market.
Anglophone Countries like Canada, the USA, Australia, the UK, Ireland and New Zealand.
European Countries with Language Skills like South Africa and Western Europe.
European Countries Requiring Translation
For instance, Latin America, eastern Europe, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
Asian Countries with Quality Internet Service
Japan, the Republic of Korea, China, Taiwan, India, Israel.
5. Market Status:
Market Supports Export Oriented Learning Technologies and Substitution of Imports
Joy Reader mobile app is targeted at children aged 0-12 who are learning English or Chinese as a second or foreign language. Creative Knowledge and Wawayayay released the app in 2015. Originally being used as a Chinese digital library for children, the App has been modified to accommodate user’s needs. To expand the market and attract local users in China, the App added English books for foreign language learners. Yet the App is still predominantly targeting the global market as a Chinese digital reading and language learning tool. They focus on adding interactive features so learners can start by listening, and follow the story and then try to mimic the phrases as well as sentences in the book. The App is initially free but provides in-app purchases for individuals or education groups. Through appannie.com, it indicates that this App is popular in the local market (China and Singapore). There are other users from the United States, South Korea, Australia and United Kingdom who used and ranked this product as well. Yet most users are from Asia, which means the developer needs to find a niche to gain popularity for its global focus.
6. Competition: Learning Technology Works With a Well-Developed Learning System
The App acts as a good language support tool, especially for learners who have just begun to learn Mandarin. In school, students learn through established academic curriculums, however, when they are at home, parents may not be able to support student’s language learning needs as they don’t speak that particular foreign language. Therefore, Joy Reader is a great App to support student’s listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. There are many Apps nowadays that support language learning with interactive features. For instance, Duolingo and Hello Chinese both help recognize new vocabulary and enhance comprehension by playing games or doing quizzes. Joy Reader is unique because most language learning and support Apps focus on vocabulary and phrases where as Joy Reader focuses language learning through reading comprehension. A similar App in the United States being applied in many school districts is called Reading A-Z.
This online reading program (and App) with downloadable books is ranked number 1 by teachers from K-5. It has similar functions and interfaces to Joy Reader so beginner learners can listen to the audio whilst learning to recognize English words. Reading A-Z also categorizes books through reading levels and learners can play games or answer quiz questions to collect stars. Most importantly, the reading program correlates with the common core states standard in the United States which makes this program organized and more systematic than Joy Reader. That is probably one of the reasons why Joy Reader isn’t as popular in the US. If the developer of Joy Reader can begin to correlate Mandarin with the TOCFL (Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language), it will be more purposeful and organized for the users.
As a language teacher, I feel Joy Reader’s interactive features motivate students to listen to the story attentively and mimic phrases through recording and scoring features. It is also a convenient tool for students to practice Mandarin at home when their parents don’t speak the language. The interface of Joy Reader is very similar to Reading A-Z and therefore, students are familiar with how the App works. As a venture product, Joy Reader has a lot of potential for school districts to invest in, especially if the school provides a Mandarin program or has Mandarin learners. However, this App still has room for improvement, such as being more stable and organized to use whilst tying in with the Chinese testing curriculum.
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