My future prediction project is aimed at helping teachers better understand the science of reading and identify reading difficulties which in turn will provide faster and more targeted intervention so that all students can learn to read. This work is currently being done with paper tests if it is even done at all. By harnessing the power of mobile technology, the Digital Reading Screener can track eye movements, record and analyze oral reading to objectively and accurately determine specific areas of need.
Though not a diagnostic or treatment tool, the Digital Reading Screener is the first step toward identifying the problem area which can then direct teachers toward the proper intervention or further testing routes necessary.
Click here to visit the google site where you will find information about the technology and reading aspects of the app as well as possible implications it could have in improve academic outcomes. The next step in this endeavour would be to find and/ or create the very best standardized measures for assessing skills in phonics, fluency and comprehension that would be used in the screening test.
The digital reading screen caught my attention! Even if I am not related to elementary teaching I see great potential for this application with non-natives speakers. I believe this application could help to complete the second language learning process, providing information about weaknesses and skills to improve. Those data can not only help teachers in supporting learners but also increase metacognition in students. Being aware of mistakes and weaknesses can lead the learner to look for opportunities for improvement. I would like to test it!
Hey Erin
I love your idea of a reading screener. I do not teach students that would use it yet, but I have used running records and it is not easy. An app that could combine their eye movements with individual sounds would be great for students who are struggling with reading. I think the eye tracking technology could also be used for other subjects as it could allow teachers to have an idea of what the students are focusing on and their thinking process while doing academic subjects.
I’m wondering if you have any idea whether if there is anything on the market already that is similar to your idea. I know that eye-tracking has been around and has been developed for more usability in the recent past to pair with VR and tech usage. I also found some eye tracking apps that could potentially look at hotspots for viewing purposes, but lack the real time functional implications that your idea would have.
Hi Erin:
Nice website. The information you have collected about digital reading screeners is very informative. I really enjoy the piece pertaining to assessment. Assessments are so critical in determining the success of learning objectives. My only concern is I don’t know how successful this type of technology will be commercially. I say that because many companies are moving to audiobooks. Between audiobooks and Kindle readers, people who struggle with reading typically move to audiobooks. The other issue is for ESL, depending on the students proficiency this digital tool may not be as helpful, especially if the student does not use a romanized alphabet system. I really wish a way existed to encourage the use of reading screeners. Society would significantly benefit from increased literacy rates.
Hi Brittany,
I see what you mean about companies and struggling readers moving toward audiobooks, however I believe that in a school setting (especially early ed) that the focus will remain on traditional text reading. The objective of using reading screeners is to catch those who are falling behind early, and bring them up to where they need to be before it is too late. This is designed to assess reading in English so I recommend that students brand new to English are not assessed using this tool and rather one designed for ESL students, until they are proficient in English.
Hi Erin. This was an excellent presentation — well researched, well delivered, and in a “just right” portion size that explained the idea and rationale in enough detail to stimulate curiosity and inquiry without cognitive overload. Sort of an “elevator pitch” but with graphics and references! Personally, I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for innovative solutions made from clever combinations of already-existing bits and pieces, put together in a new way. I know that software-driven voice analysis was being used in language learning software over a decade ago to analyze pronunciation, and eye tracking technology is being used in everything from accessibility hardware (the “eye mouse”) to marketing research. The building blocks are there, so my only real question is “this hasn’t been done yet??”. If not then I suggest you find an angel investor or two, partner up with your choice of tech company and make it happen, because this idea really has legs.
I’m a teacher of adults, not children, but I can easily imagine both the degree to which this would free up teachers to attend to other, higher-level educational concerns and also the benefits of learning/practicing on demand, analytics and performance monitoring, and student comfort and engagement. I’m struggling to think of a downside or a risk or some other fatal flaw but I really can’t see one. Nicely done.
Thank you for your feedback Sean,
I am really passionate about reading screening and this project has made me really tempted to find a way to make it a reality!
Hi Erin,
You have put a lot of thought into this forecast! I was wondering, did you get to try out e-reading screeners with Dr. Georgiou?
I would love add extras to this proposal:
As mentioned by Meg, could this reader discern problems with eye-strain, dyslexia, myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism? Could it be tweaked to help diagnose an intervention with an ophthalmologist?
If the child will return to use this reader several times a year or over the course of the years, could it offer a reading list, and change the text – as in have a bank of texts – for more engagement?
I have a question about English language learners. As Jennifer and Esther mention, accents could affect the reader’s feedback. The voice recognition software on my smartphone is attuned to my voice. Perhaps this functionality could help with adjusting for accents. I wonder if the text provided for the reader could be adjusted, so that the story is interesting for the age level of the child, as well as for their reading level. I have often wondered if such a detail would affect the results of a reading test, especially for non-native English speakers in the older grades.
I also have a question about privacy. Using this e-reader will result in the collection of a lot of personal data, which would span several years. Have you thoughts on how to keep this safe? Will the data be available only within the school system?
You did a great presentation and the Google sites worked smoothly on my Android. Well done on the content and delivery!
Hi Evelyne,
I have experience using paper/pencil reading screeners but am not aware of any digital versions.
I had not considered using it to also assess possible eye problems but it is a very interesting angle, but I feel like it would be best to keep the focus on reading for this app. The screeners I use now have different versions for each grade and time of year so results are not skewed by students memorizing the material and it is developmentally appropriate. This is something that I would want to implement when determining the assessments used in the app as well.
We store out current reading data in secure spreadsheets that are password protected and only accessible by the classroom teacher and their administrators. That would definitely be something to greatly consider for this app.
Hi Erin,
Thanks for sharing your A3 project. As a parent of a 7-year-old, who just started reading books on her own this school year, I found that your presentation was informative, especially to learn about the importance of early intervention in developing reading skills. I really liked the idea that the results of reading assessments using the Digital Reading Screener can be immediate and easy to understand using the color-coded data and text summary. It would be a great addition to educational technology tools as it would reduce teacher’s workload and time and the assessments could be done using the built-in features on the mobile devices that schools already have. As Jennifer mentioned below, I am also concerned that if the Digital Reading Screener would be able to detect reading fluency of students with accent because students can read fluently in English (or any foreign languages) with a native language accent. I really enjoyed reading through the contents on your presentation and fascinated by the eye movement tracking technology that we have today. With further research and development, I can see the possibility and benefits of having the Digital Reading Screener in the near future!
Thank you Esther!
That is a really good point about accents. I would want to look further into the app coding process to find a solution for that problem. In my mind, the app would be able to detect and accept some variation in letter sounds that are common among different accents as the differences usually appear in vowels and a finite number of letter pairings. If a student had a really strong accent or speech impediment, a back up plan could be for the teacher to manually do the fluency assessment for those students. I hope as the technology advances that speech detection technology will improve and be able to account for these differences.
Hi Erin,
I really enjoyed your A3. I thought that the video you provided on the differences between the eye movements of confident vs developing readers really put eye tracking into perspective! As someone who has taught mostly primary, I think that this app would have a big impact on a lot of teachers lives. I know that in the beginning of the year, when we are doing reading assessments and teaching the class at the same time it can be really overwhelming. A tool like this can really help to speed up the process. Reading assessments are also stressful for students as well, and maybe the objectivity of technology would make them less intimidated. I am wondering if with a technology like the Digital Reading Screener, special algorithms or microphones would need to be developed for recording student speech. The reason why I am thinking about this is that sometimes speech input technology can pull from ‘most accessed’ words, and students with accents might not have their speech inputted correctly into the reader. Background noise may also be a factor, which I’ve had issues with in the past with Google Read Write. Great job!
Thank you Jennifer,
That is a really good point to consider. One of the common assessments for phonics is for students to read a list of non-words (ie. ip, ga, luddy, dord) as fast as they can to assess if they can decode “words” they have definitely never seen before. If current speech technology defaults to most accessed words that would be a big problem for this assessment since it would try to turn these non-words into real words, as well as others where we want to see exactly what errors were made. I wonder if that could be done during the app coding process? If the app could be coded to accept input verbatim so it could properly assess the true data.
Similarly for students with accents, I would hope that there would be a way to calibrate it to recognize certain speech patterns as accents and accept some variety in letter sounds to account for dialects and speech impediments.
Hi Erin,
What a great tool for teachers! I think it’s very useful for teachers to get more personalized information on individual students’ strengths and weaknesses, so that teachers can better cater their class to the students’ needs. It’s also great information for parents as well, so they can work with the teachers to help their children improve.
How do you think the accuracy of the technology will be affected by young students who get side tracked by something in their environment they couldn’t control such as their parents talking to them in the background? With this technology, is there a risk of stereotyping the kids based on results generated by the technology? How can teachers make sure that they are not just reading the data as is, and not trying to understand more background information to the child’s reading habit or environment?
I really enjoyed your website, I think it’s quite well made, and your argument is strong. I would want to use this technology to help understand my daughter’s reading fluency. Thanks!
Hi Emily, thank you for your feedback!
Those are all concerns that I hear many teachers bring up when working with the the current paper/pencil reading screeners in schools. When possible it is best to perform these types of assessments in a quiet room to minimize possible external distractions but when that is not possible they can be done in places like the library or a quiet hallway.
I think it is important not to take any piece of data as a be-all-end-all. The thing to remember with reading screeners is that it should confirm what you already are seeing in your classroom. If I had a student who was an excellent reader and they scored very poorly on a screening test I would not assume that they are a poor reader- I would ask myself if they were distracted during the exam, if they misunderstood or other possibilities and probably retest them in a few weeks. If a student of mine is not progressing the way they should be and they score poorly on the exam then that would more so confirm my suspicions and now I can find out what is causing the problem.
Hi Erin,
This would be a wonderful additional to the primary teacher’s toolkit. Almost like a SLP in an App-not to diminish their work. I honestly think there is a great possibility of providing your screen reader in the very near future if not today. I actually had the chance to take in a lecture by George Georgiou on early literacy and it was very interesting albeit overwhelmingly comprehensive. I think your future app makes good use of the research in helping to remedy issues with reading development. I could also see the potential of this app for use in teaching ESL.
Thanks again Erin!
Thanks Philip,
I actually worked on Dr. Georgiou’s research team administering the current reading screeners for a study and now am using them in the classroom, which is exactly where I got the idea! Like you mentioned, I think it is important for the technology not to devalue or take away work that teachers and specialists do, but I think this would work well as a bridge between teachers and specialists to streamline the process and make it more efficient and accurate.
Hi Erin!
This is amazing – great work! I can really see the practical implications for this in schools. My boys have struggled with reading during their primary years, so I can see how this technology would really help and streamline identifying where the issues are. My oldest got glasses for reading which has helped, but I think that maybe with an app like this his need for glasses may have been identified earlier? I wonder if there could be a connection between schools using an app like this and sharing the information with local optometrists?
Thanks Meg,
That is a very interesting idea to use this type of technology in optometry! Like you mentioned, it’s all about early identification and intervention- for reading, the window of opportunity “closes” after grade 3 so it is so important to make this process as streamlined as possible and get kids targeted intervention whether that be in one of the foundational reading skills, glasses, SLP or LD diagnoses.