New page in online activity for children
Struck by the realization that even though there are plenty of online libraries and websites offering books and much more for teenagers and young adults, there was no such online facility for young children, attorney-at-law and lecturer at CIMA, Boopathy Kahathuduwa, moved to fill this void. In June last year, he put together a team of IT professionals and teachers to create wooks.lk.
Wooks.lk is “Sri Lanka’s one and only online children’s storybook library”, offering young children below the age of ten a range of English and Sinhala story books to choose from. The goal is to make reading fun, educational and a lifelong hobby for children, both in Sri Lanka, and other countries.
A subscription to the site offers unlimited access to storybooks, colouring books, puzzle books, activity books and more. Boopathy told the Sunday Times that the Sinhala and English story books in their library have been carefully selected by teachers he is working with.
Boopathy says he felt the need to launch the online library because children in many Sri Lankan schools are not taught English from Grade one onwards.
Boopathy Kahathuduwa
Moreover, many stories featured on the site are “traditional” Sri Lankan stories that many of us grew up hearing. Many Sri Lankans who live abroad now, have shown an interest in their children hearing and reading these stories, Boopathy revealed. There are children from countries such as Australia, reading these stories with their parents and teachers. Since June, the wooks.lk website has had more than 30,000 visits and more than 4000 registered users, from Sri Lanka and abroad.
“Young children don’t like online learning and unlike the older students they don’t have a broad attention span as well. So they can’t focus on online learning for more than an hour or so. Many teachers are also not tech-savvy or innovative when it comes to teaching young students online,” Boopathy said.
For Wooks’ 30-minute reading sessions, teachers read from English or Sinhala children’s story books uploaded on the website. Preschools interested in using Wooks’ online library and reading sessions can also purchase a plug-in to host “reading day” for their students, for a nominal fee of Rs. 100 a month for each student.
Boopathy said in future, more international storybooks may be added to the online library, and they are also making plans to introduce wooks.lk to other South Asian countries.
The biggest challenge that Boopathy and his team faced when putting together wooks.lk was having to work completely online and remotely.
“We started our work last year, during the first lockdown, using WhatsApp, Trello and other readily available online apps and tools. Right now, we have a team of around 16,” he said.
While wooks.lk has only Sinhala and English children’s books at the moment, Boopathy is interested in including Tamil children’s books to the site as well, in future. Wooks can be accessed through https://www.wooks.lk/ and those interested can also visit their YouTube channel (Wooks).
Teachers or preschools interested in signing up for Wooks can choose to subscribe for one of three pricing plans: Basic Wooks, Wooks Library or Wooks TV. The Basic Wooks package is priced at Rs. 99 per student for the first month, and Rs.499 per student per month from the next month onwards. All Sinhala books can be accessed with this package. The Wooks Library package offers all Sinhala and English books, for Rs. 199 per student per month, and Rs. 999 per student per month from the next month onwards. The Wooks TV package offers access to Sinhala and English books and book reading sessions, for Rs. 499 per student in the first month and then Rs. 1499 per student per month from next month onwards.
Searching for that next furry family member but couldn’t find one in your area? Hitad.lk has the solution with our extensive listings of dogs for sale in Sri Lanka!