Educational devices, systems and methods using optical character recognition

• US 7,351,062 B2
• Filed: 12/19/2005
• Issued: 04/01/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/17/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Learning Resources, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Learning Resources, Inc.
• Inventors: Plain, Barbara E., Yuen, Po Man, Ng, Victor Kwok-ho, Gordon, Gayle E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Pezzuto; Robert
• Assistant Examiner(s): Shah; Milap
• Application Number:
  US11/311,527
• Publication Number:
  US 20060188852A1
• Time in Patent Office: 834 Days
• Field of Search: 434/178, 434/167, 434/171, 434/172, 434/175, 434/156, 434/323
• US Class Current: 434/178
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 1/32 comprising elements to be used without a special support
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 17/006 with audible presentation of the material to be studied audio and audio-visual teaching apparatus in general G09B5/04, G09B5/06
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 19/06 Foreign languages with audible presentation of material to be studied G09B5/04
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 21/007 using both tactile and audible presentation of the information
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 5/06 with both visual and audible presentation of the material to be studied

Abstract

Educational devices, educational systems, and methods of teaching and learning reading are provided. The devices, systems, and methods can include an indicium reader, such as an optical character recognition device, for reading indicium from objects. Such objects can be three-dimensional blocks and the indicium can be a letter, word, sentence, number, or some other type of readable character(s). The devices, systems, and methods can include a display for displaying the read indicium and an audio producing device for producing audio corresponding to the read indicium. The educational devices can be a self-contained, portable unit with the indicium reader, the display, and the audio producing device supported by a housing of the educational devices.

Claims

1. An educational system comprising:

an object bearing an indicium readable by a user;

a housing defining a substantially linear path for the object, the path including an infeed end and an outfeed end;

a transporter supported by the housing that moves the object along the substantially linear path from the infeed end to the outfeed end;

an optical character recognition device supported by the housing that optically recognizes the indicium on the object;

a display supported by the housing that displays the indicium; and

a processor supported by the housing for reproducing the optically recognized indicium on the display.

2. The educational system of claim 1, wherein the transporter is a conveyor belt for positioning the object relative to the optical character recognition device to permit the indicium on the object to be recognized by the optical character recognition device.

3. The educational system of claim 1, wherein the indicium is a letter.

4. The educational system of claim 1, wherein the indicium is a word.

5. The educational system of claim 1, wherein the indicium is a number.

6. The educational system of claim 1, wherein the object is a first object, the educational device further comprising a plurality of objects including the first object, each of the plurality of objects including an indicium bearing surface bearing an indicium thereon readable by a user, and wherein the optical character recognition device is operable to optically recognize the indicium on each of the indicium bearing surfaces of the plurality of objects.

7. The educational system of claim 6, wherein the processor is operable to reproduce the optically recognized indicium of the plurality of objects on the display.

8. The educational system of claim 6, wherein the indicium-bearing surfaces of a selected group of the plurality of objects are simultaneously visible for optical recognition by the optical character recognition device.

9. The educational system of claim 8, wherein the indicium on each of the indicium bearing surfaces of the selected group of the plurality of objects together form a word.

10. The educational system of claim 8, wherein the indicium on each of the indicium bearing surfaces of the selected group of the plurality of objects together form a sentence.

11. The educational system of claim 8, wherein the selected group of objects are connectable to each other.

12. An educational device comprising:

a housing having a feed channel defining a substantially linear path, the path including an infeed end and an outfeed end;

a first object including a first indicium;

a second object including a second indicium;

an indicium reader supported by the housing that reads the first indicium on the first object and the second indicium on the second object when the first object and the second object are in a reading position, the first object being connectable to the second object; and

a transporter supported by the housing that moves the first object and the second object along said feed channel.

13. The educational device of claim 12, wherein the transporter moves the first object and the second object into and out of the reading position.

14. The educational device of claim 12, wherein the indicium reader is an optical character recognition device.

15. The educational device of claim 12, wherein the transporter is a conveyor belt.

16. The educational device of claim 15, further comprising a motor coupled to the conveyor belt for driving the conveyor belt, the conveyor belt being engagable with the first object and the second object to move the first object and the second object toward the reading position.

17. The educational device of claim 12, further comprising a cover at least partially covering the feed channel.

18. A method of teaching and learning reading, the method comprising;

providing an object bearing an indicium readable by a user;

providing a self-contained educational device including a housing defining a substantially linear path, the path including an infeed end and an outfeed end, the device also including an indicium reader supported by the housing, a display supported by the housing, and an audio producing device supported by the housing;

feeding the object into the self-contained educational device along the substantially linear path with a transporter;

reading the indicium of the object with the indicium reader;

audibly pronouncing the indicium of the object with the audio producing device; and

displaying the indicium on the display of the self-contained educational device.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the audio corresponding to the indicium is a phoneme.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the audio produced is a spoken rendition of the indicium.

21. The method of claim 18, wherein the audio produced is a pre-recorded voice rendition of the indicium.

22. The method of claim 18, wherein the audio produced is a synthesized voice rendition of the indicium.

23. The method of claim 18, wherein the indicium is a letter, and wherein reading includes reading the letter with the indicium reader and displaying includes displaying the letter on the display of the educational device.

24. The method of claim 18 wherein the indicium is a word, and wherein reading includes reading the word with the indicium reader and displaying includes displaying the word on the display of the educational device.

25. The method of claim 18, wherein the transporter is a conveyor belt, and wherein feeding includes feeding the object by the indicium reader with the conveyor belt.

26. The method of claim 18, wherein providing an object includes providing a plurality of objects each bearing an indicium readable by a user, the method further comprising

selecting a group of objects from the plurality of objects,

selecting an indicium-bearing surface of each of the objects in the selected group, and

arranging the selected group of objects such that the selected indicium bearing surfaces are simultaneously visible.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein feeding further includes feeding the selected group of objects into the educational device after arranging the selected group of objects.

28. The method of claim 26, wherein the indicium on each of the selected indicium bearing surfaces together form a word.

29. The method of claim 26, wherein the indicium on each of the selected indicium bearing surfaces together form a sentence.

30. The method of claim 26, further comprising connecting the selected group of objects together before feeding the selected group of objects into the educational device.