Educational apparatuses come in a variety of configurations, shapes and sizes and educate users, such as young children, in a variety of manners. One educational area of great importance for educational apparatuses is reading, because reading skills are considered an essential building block of learning and is a “gateway” skill for acquisition of educational content and concepts in other subject areas.
Some educational apparatuses include a plurality of signal-emitting manipulative devices having educational information thereon for manipulation by a user, and a processing device for interpreting the educational information on the manipulative devices. The user commonly arranges the manipulative devices in a predetermined manner to form, for example, a word or a sentence. Each of the manipulative devices includes electrical or magnetic components that emit a signal receivable by a receiver of the processing device. The processing device then interprets the signals, and words or pictures are displayed on a monitor and/or converted to an audio signal corresponding to the interpreted signal.
Other educational apparatuses include a plurality of manipulative devices and a processing device for interpreting the educational information on the manipulative device and rely upon physical engagement between the manipulative devices and the processing device to “read” the information on the manipulative devices. The manipulative devices commonly include coding, e.g., bumps or mechanical keying on a surface thereof that is engagable with a code reading device or can be read electrically, such as by electromagnetic emissions, to represent information that can be read from the manipulative device and transferred to the processing device. The processing device subsequently interprets the coding from the manipulative devices and can display information and/or produce an audio signal corresponding to the educational information on the manipulative device.
Yet other educational apparatuses use barcode readers or other code readers. Such readers are typically hand-held and are often used in combination with a readable medium such as a book or other literary device having barcodes or other coded material thereon. The readers are brought into contact with or positioned closely over the barcodes or other coded material and moved thereover to read or identify the barcodes or coded material. The readers are commonly connected to a separate PC (Personal Computer) or other processing device to display the identified word(s) on a separate monitor or to create an audio sound corresponding to the identified barcode or coded material.
Still other educational apparatuses include supplemental material, such as a book or an activity card, and a central processing unit (“CPU”). The user uses the CPU to identify the supplemental material by keying information unique to the supplemental material into the CPU. Once the CPU identifies the supplemental material, the educational apparatus operates according to the preprogrammed information of the identified supplemental material. In other words, operation of the educational apparatus is dependent upon the identified supplemental material, and operation of the educational apparatus is limited by the preprogrammed parameters of the supplemental material. In some constructions of such educational apparatuses, the educational apparatus includes a stylus interactable with the supplemental material to complete an electrical circuit at a particular point on a grid of the supplemental material. When the electrical circuit is completed, a single specific response is provided.
Some educational apparatuses are used to translate languages and employ an optical character recognition (“OCR”) device to recognize the material to be translated. Such OCR devices are used in combination with a PC or other type of computer because of the large storage and memory capabilities required for performing the OCR and translation operations. The educational apparatuses with OCR capabilities require connection to the PC or other external processing device to display the identified words on a separate monitor or to create an audio sound corresponding to the identified word and the like.