The literacy level of adults in numerous developed countries
remains a concern for many governments despite the
considerable resources being expended on attempting to
raise levels. Increasing the general level of literacy is
recognised as an important step in improving the well-being
of children. The current method of teaching literacy in
schools is not meeting the needs of many and perhaps new
and innovative approaches can be explored. Children are
spending increasingly more time communicating
electronically and this paper on vocabulary development
investigates the strategy of incorporating the teaching of
literacy into Mifrenz, a children’s email application
(www.mifrenz.com).

Vocabulary can typically be divided into groups of words from frequently used words to ever more specialized words. This vocabulary tool, analyses emails that individual children send and it keeps a record of the words that the child has already used to determine at which level the child is currently working. Each time the Mifrenz application is used, the child can choose to click on the ‘Word of the day’ – i.e. a word that 1) is at their level, 2) has not yet used by the child and 3) has not yet been displayed to the child. The child is also given the meaning of the word and an example of how it can be used in a sentence.

Mifrenz is a multi-lingual application and therefore the new
words that are displayed must match the language the child
is using. The database, background logic and user interfaces
have been designed to allow for an unlimited number of
languages to be used.