IN a reading corner at Qixi Township Central School in Kaihua County, a mountainous area in east China’s Zhejiang Province, students sit with tablet computers, absorbed in stories as soft notification chimes mix with the sound of reading aloud.
Through smart devices and mobile networks, these children interact with an AI-powered assistant known as “Qian Xiaowa”, which helps them read classics and recite poems, and recommends materials tailored to their abilities and interests.
“There are so many books and picture stories on the tablet that I had never read before,” said Wang Xiaoxiao, a 10-yearold fourth grader. “With a tap, I can hear standard pronunciation, whether it’s English stories or Chinese texts.”
This scene reflects a broader push to narrow China’s urban-rural reading gap via technology.
Qixi school sits at the source of the Qiantang River, where the borders of Zhejiang, Anhui and Jiangxi provinces meet. Most of its students are “left-behind children” raised by grandparents while their parents work elsewhere.
For years, the school’s library held only a few hundred books, many of them outdated or inappropriate for young readers, said Wang Wenhui, a teacher at the school.
Xinhua
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