Using Speech and Language Technology to Coach Reading

Using Speech and Language Technology to Coach Reading Patti Price Formerly BravoBrava! LLC Now PPRICE Speech and Language 1-650-503-7053 pjp@pprice.com Luc Julia BravoBrava! LLC 32980 AlvaradoNiles Road, Suite 856 Union City, CA 94587 1-510-477-0493 Julia@bravobrava.com ABSTRACT BravoBrava! is expanding the repertoire of commercial user interfaces by incorporating multimodal techniques combining traditional point and click interfaces with speech recognition, speech synthesis, and gesture recognition. One of these applications is software to help children read. While the child reads aloud, the computer keeps the child on track and offers feedback when the child has difficulty. The feedback can be as subtle as changing the text color for a well articulated phrase or as friendly as a cartoon character that talks. The computer is infinitely patient and can keep detailed records of the child's progress. The reading software is being commercialized by BravoBrava!’s spinoff company, SUP Inc. Keywords: Reading, pedagogy Figure 1. Here is an example from a sample story. The system tracks the reading and intervenes when help is needed. This screen shows a sample intervention if the child stumbles on the word ‘butterflies’. 1. INTRODUCTION Our vision is to use technology to provide a high-quality, low cost reading coach that delivers voice-activated reading instruction, practice, and assessment over electronic media. Reading is fundamental; it can also be fun. However, about 40% of mainstream 4th graders cannot read at the basic level. One of our country’s critical needs is to improve reading performance for all children since their future, both individually and together, depends on literacy. Reading level predicts economic performance for both individuals and societies. Beyond the basics, as reviewed in the recent report of the National Reading Panel (2000), engaging children in supported oral reading is the most valuable means toward building their reading proficiency. At present, however, the only means of giving children such practice is by finding a human adult who will sit with them and help them. However, technology can provide an automated reading coach to break through this bottleneck, so that every child in every school can get the support that she or he needs. This technology will help reduce the digital divide, and provide an unprecedented level of tracking data to leverage teachers’ instruction and assessment efforts and to build the next generation of intervention techniques. 2. SUP’S APPROACH SUP targets the stage at which children have learned the letter to sound rules but are still struggling to gain vocabulary and fluency. This stage has sometimes been called the transition from ‘learning to read’ to ‘reading to learn’ and comes just after the stage requiring explicit pronunciation and vocabulary tutoring, provided by Mostow’s Project Listen at CMU and other reading software. At this stage in reading development, language skills are usually too poor to make traditional dictionaries much of a help. Dictionaries disrupt the child’s focus on the text being read, offer too many definitions, and usually provide definitions that are harder for the child to read than the original text. Instead, SUP provides a …

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