Classroom Use and Efficacy of an Automated Reading Tutor that Listens

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This project will investigate an innovative, technology-enabled approach to elementary reading - an automated reading tutor that displays stories on a computer screen, listens to children read aloud, and helps them learn to read. Experimental use in an urban elementary school has provided initial evidence of the Reading Tutor's ability to engage students in sustained assisted reading. In a four-month controlled study, children who used the Reading Tutor gained significantly more in reading comprehension than classmates who spent the same time in regular activities. The main question addressed by the project is the efficacy of the Reading Tutor when used in real classrooms. The experiments include an evaluation of the Reading Tutor's longitudinal effects on student progress, compared to commercial software and to human tutors. Expected outcomes include demonstrating the effectiveness of speech-recognition-enabled assistance in building and assessing reading skills, and establishing how much various type so learners, problems, and skill sets benefit from such assistance.Sustainability and scalability will be addressed by analyzing and addressing key factors at the interface between technology and the classroom that affect the amount of usage of the system. Experiments with successive prototypes of a Reading Tutor that runs on commercially available computers will lay research foundations for transition of it and other educational software into affordable, effective, scalable interventions that can make a real difference in children's education.