On Fri, 12 Nov 2004, Her Serene Highness wrote:
Illiterates rarely use computers for reading. PG would be useful after a person became literate, i.e., able to read. Even the children's books on PG are a bit too advanced for a person who is non-litereate. Having taught reading, it would not be the first place I would turn- it's too text-heavy, for one thing.
Given that most computers today can read eBooks out loud, it's a perfect way to learn how to read, except that you might end up talking like Stephen Hawking. . . . However, given the number of people who learned English and other languages over the short-wave radio, I think there is a real future for this. Obviously it's not "The Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" as in "The Diamond Age," by Neal Stephenson, but it's a start. I have received a number of emails from people who were starting to learn English who found our eBooks very useful. Michael