Google announced the launch of its new application, Read Along, which aims to help children develop reading and learning skills, amid school closures due to the Coronavirus.

"With many students now staying home due to school closures, families around the world are looking for ways to help children develop their reading skills," the US tech giant said in a post on her blog.

"To support families, we share early access to Read Along today from Google. It is an Android app for children over the age of five to help them learn to read, by providing verbal and visual instructions while reading stories openly," she added.

The new application is a global version of the application "Google Polo", which was launched in India last year, and contains stories read in English and Hindi. Now the company decided to release it to more young learners around the world, and changed the name to suit users around the world.

Red Along uses speech recognition and text-to-speech to help children learn to read. The application includes a special reading aid called Diya (Diya); while children read aloud, Diya discovers if the child suffers when uttering a word and can help him pronounce it, and it also encourages children to do more and praise them. At any time, the child can ask "Zia" to help him read a sentence or pronounce a word that he does not know.

As children progress through the app, mini-word games are provided, and they earn in-app rewards while improving their skills.

Parents can create personal files for more than one child, so the app can customize the reading experience according to the child's age and abilities, and to keep children safe and private.

Google says the app was built with children's privacy in mind, and is able to work without the Internet, Google does not store children's voices on its servers, and the company also confirms that it does not use a sample of children's voices to improve the product.

There are no fees for the app, nor does it include ads or in-app purchases either, and parents can choose to connect to the internet if they wish to download additional stories.

The new Red Along app is now available in more than 180 countries and in nine languages, such as: English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Hindi. The company promised to continue to improve the application, expand the set of books, and add more features.

"Red Along" currently offers about five hundred stories, and it will be updated with new books, continuously, and it is currently available for the Android operating system only, and it can be downloaded from the Google Store.