Burton: Reading Rainbow App
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Reading Rainbow may have fallen victim to a lack of money and a change in attitude regarding educational television programming, but former host LeVar Burton had found a way to bring it back for a new generation.
Burton believes that today’s children are in need of encouragement when it comes to reading. “There is a brand new generation of kids who could definitely use the kind of spark and inspiration Reading Rainbow provided where actually becoming a reader is concerned,” he said. “As far as I can tell, reading will never go out of style, and neither will good old fashioned storytelling.”
A mobile app is Burton’s first step in reaching out to those children. “The center-point of the App is books,” said Burton “Wonderful, lightly enhanced digital books for children. However we’re also very interested in delivering an enriching experience to kids, much like classic Reading Rainbow did on TV.”
Burton has already retrieved the @readingrainbow Twitter handle from a cybersquatter, and future plans would include DVDs and classic Reading Rainbow episodes, which would be streamed.
“Every day of my life someone comes up to me and tells me about the impact the show had on them growing up,” said Burton. It’s no secret that our educational system is no longer the platinum standard on the world stage that it once was. This is simply my way of continuing to do what I’ve always done, just in a different medium.”
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