Designing the LIT KIT, an interactive, environmental, cyber-physical artifact enhancing children's picture-book reading

The outcome of a multidisciplinary and iterative process, the LIT KIT is a portable, cyber-physical artifact supporting children's picture-book reading. The LIT KIT follows from the hypothesis that children's literacy can be advanced in a tangible, co-creative environment that is both physical and digital. The LIT KIT employs color, sound and movement to scaffold meaning-making through the creation of an environment that is evocative of the picture-book being read. Designed with a Sifteo™ cube [16] interface, the LIT KIT creates room-scaled audio-visual and spatial effects to both contextualize language and provide feedback during dialogical interactions between a child and an adult reader. Children can customize the LIT KIT settings to actively interpret the ideas, concepts and environments inherent in the picture-book's words and images. The LIT KIT is an outreach component, for home or classroom use, of our developing room-scaled LIT ROOM for a major public library. Presented here are motivations for the LIT KIT, and an elaboration of its design and development. Usability evaluations have begun and continue, as we further the prototype with expected completion in Summer 2013.