Deep Letter Knowledge for Emerging Literacy

描述（由申请人提供）：国家的经济福祉，健康和民主运作都取决于识字和知情的公民。然而，目前的教学并没有培养出识字的学生。这种情况的出现很大程度上是因为美国教育体系的失败。尽管有压倒性的证据表明，语音为基础的教学是必不可少的熟练阅读，有广泛的知识缺乏，或否认，这一证据之间的教师和教师的导师。此外，有强有力的证据表明，基于语音的教学应该包括编码教学，但编码教学在今天的学校很少出现。第二阶段的目标是提高美国学生的阅读和写作技能，并将教学实践转变为包括语音和编码教学。具体而言，Talking Fingers，Inc. (TFI)将（1）开发用于iPad，Android和在线软件，最后四个 七个创新的应用程序与伴随的游戏，将提供一个7部分的课程（谈话），为提供明确的，直接的，系统的，增量的对学前班、幼儿园和家庭进行语音和编码教学（并具有很强的激励作用），及（2）以192名学前及幼稚园学生为对象，进行扩大研究，以评估这7-发展阅读和写作技能的部分课程。产品名称：在第一阶段，Carol康纳博士独立开发和评估了七个应用程序中的三个，结果表明可行性和有效性。每个故事有5个游戏，七个故事（关于两个姐妹篇谁发明了字母表“很久很久以前”），将逐步涵盖26个字母和40个英语语音。孩子们将使用平板电脑/互联网来听故事，画字母，说和记录单词，并玩游戏来拼写和阅读使用每个故事中介绍的声音/字母对的关键词。进度评估是内置的。游戏将促进学生/教师的互动。这项研究将192名4岁和5岁的奥尔兹随机分为两组（对照组和治疗组），为期14周，将评估这些应用程序是否令人愉快，易于使用，并有效地提高语音意识，发音，拼写，阅读和写作技能。这项研究将由哈斯金斯实验室的研究员Marjorie Gillis博士进行。TFI是一家女性拥有的小型企业，曾因开发教育软件而获得四项SBIR奖，它将与阅读专家和专业程序员合作开发和测试这七个应用程序。TFI已经成功地销售了20多年的以前的软件，移动的设备提供了一个新的和非常迅速增长的机会。目前还没有类似的基于语音的增量式语音库。在全国范围内对学前教育和幼儿园进行投资，重点关注语音和编码教学，可以提高整个美国的识字水平（甚至智商水平），并导致更健康，更有成效，更好地了解公民，节省数百万美元现在花在社会服务，医疗服务和监狱上。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The economic well-being, health and democratic functioning of the nation all depend on a literate and informed citizenry. However, current instruction is not producing literate students. This situation arises largely because of a failure f America's education system. Despite overwhelming evidence that phonologically-based instruction is essential for skilled reading, there is widespread lack of knowledge, or denial, of this evidence among teachers and also instructors of teachers. In addition, there is strong evidence that phonologically-based instruction should include encoding instruction, however encoding instruction in today's schools is rarely present. The goals of this Phase II project are t improve reading and writing skills in America and to shift instructional practice to include phonological and encoding instruction. Specifically, the software development team of Talking Fingers, Inc. (TFI) will (1) develop for use on iPad, Android and online software, the last four of seven innovative applications with accompanying games that will deliver a 7-part curriculum (Talking Shapes), for providing explicit, direct, systematic, incremental (and highly motivating) phonological and encoding instruction to pre-schools, kindergartens and families, and (2) carry out scaled-up research with 192 pre-school and kindergarten students to evaluate the effectiveness of this 7-part curriculum for developing reading and writing skills. Product: In Phase I, three of seven apps were developed and evaluated independently by Dr. Carol Connor with significant results suggesting feasibility and efficacy. With 5 games per story, the seven stories (about two sisters who invented the alphabet "long, long ago"), will incrementally cover the 26 letters and 40 speech sounds of English. Children will use tablets/internet to hear the stories, draw letters, say and record words and play games to spell-out and read key words that use the sound/letter pairs introduced in each story. Progress assessment is built-in. Games will prompt student/teacher interactions. The research, carried out with 192 four and five year olds randomly assigned to 2 groups (control and treatment) for 14 weeks, will evaluate whether the apps are enjoyable, easy-to-use and effective in improving phonological awareness, articulation, spelling, reading and writing skills. The research will be carried out by Dr. Marjorie Gillis, Research Affiliate at Haskins Laboratory. TFI, a small woman-owned business and recipient of four previous SBIR awards for developing educational software, will collaborate with reading experts and professional programmers to develop and test these seven applications. TFI has successfully marketed previous software for over 20 years, and mobile devices offer a new and very rapidly growing opportunity. There are no similar incremental, phonologically-based curriculums currently available. A nationwide investment in pre-school and kindergarten with a focus on phonological and encoding instruction could raise literacy levels (and even I.Q levels) across America and result in a healthier, more productive, better informed citizenry, saving millions of dollars now spent on social services, health services, and prisons.