Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - iRead (Infrastructure and integrated tools for personalized learning of reading skill)

Teaser

Literacy is a critical foundational skill that shapes educational attainment, integration in social life and future employment opportunities (UNESCO, 1958). It is the ability to read and write with understanding that involves a lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning...

Summary

Literacy is a critical foundational skill that shapes educational attainment, integration in social life and future employment opportunities (UNESCO, 1958). It is the ability to read and write with understanding that involves a lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from a critical interpretation of written text.

Globally, UNESCO reports that there are almost 800 million people who are illiterate. This is not just a problem for developing countries. In England, for example, 25% of young adults have poor literacy compared with an average of only 9% in the top performing countries in Europe (Kuczera et al 2016). Illiteracy can result from antecedents such as social opportunity including language and literacy practices at home, efficacy of pedagogical support and the child’s reading difficulties (Rose, 2006). Within compulsory education, about 1 in 10 children are struggling readers who are unable to master decoding as it is traditionally taught, as a result gradually being left behind in the classroom despite their potential. There is increasing evidence to suggest that technology can be used to foster literacy and to our current interest, reading.

Two barriers exist to fully realising the potential of these learning applications are: (1) the lack of personalisation that can meet the varied needs of each student and (2) the lack of an integrated approach that exploits the pedagogical opportunities of each individual tool to enhance different reading processes. The ambition of iRead is to:

• Develop a flexible, scalable and cost-effective cloud-based software infrastructure which supports personalised learning technologies;
• Take a holistic approach to reading that considers both reading comprehension and word decoding skills as equally critical parts of the reading process;
• Upgrade learning applications previously shown to foster reading development into personalized technologies by interfacing with the iRead infrastructure;
• Orchestrate the teaching process through learning analytics tools that allow on-going formative assessment and other teacher resources supporting the use of the technology by teachers;
• Adopt a wide reaching approach targeting primary school children acquiring reading and writing skills (i) either making typical progress in learning to read (ii) children who struggle with reading due to dyslexia and (iii) children who are learning a foreign language.

Work performed

In the context of the project, we, initially, set out the requirements for the technology. The first task aimed to understand teachers’ user requirements for the iRead system. Curricula were reviewed, user stories developed, constraints for the iRead system identified. The second task focused on privacy and security, and in particular data ownership, data storage and data security. The third task captured what is expected from the system in terms of functionality, the nature of data and documents stored in the database and used by the applications, as well as some contextual requirements (e.g. reliability of internet connectivity).

We then defined domain models shaping the project’s learning goals, and developed dictionary content resources used by the applications (such as literacy games and a Reader app, which are described below). Seven domain models representing different learner groups and languages were constructed and finalised. Domain models are described through difficulty levels and design prerequisites determining progression. Building upon the domain models, their applications, and the data they can collect about the child, progress was made in developing an initial rule set for an adaptive game component and performing a set of participatory workshops to define the foci of the learning analytics teacher tools.

Efforts were also directed towards personalising text selection for learners based on their reading needs as well as reading goals. We have made some progress toward this goal by creating initial text difficulty analysis tools for English, German, Greek and Spanish. The text difficulty analyses tools take into account various language features as well as language features that the learner is struggling (defined within the domain models and captured in a child’s user model).

We also developed a games application designed to teach reading across the three learner groups and four languages included in the project. Through sixteen puzzle game mechanics, our game, Pyramid of the Lost Words, engages learners across a wide breadth of learning objectives; covering both word and sentence level reading content. Through iterative learner-centred design, involving feedback and evaluation from students and teachers, the game has been refined to address pedagogical, engagement and usability concerns. Furthermore, an initial proof-of-concept implementation for interactive personalised eBooks has been implemented.

A Reader app has been designed to scaffold children’s reading through personalised embedded supports and other instructional features. The app design includes design feedback from project partners and Primary school teachers as well as technical feedback to assess feasibility. A Beta version of the app has been delivered and evaluated for usability by students at several Primary schools. Finally, project partners have been sourcing accessible child appropriate content to use as part of the evaluation phase of the project in schools.

The project will also be offering the infrastructure, to support applications such as games, eBooks and a Reader app, upon which the personalised experience will also be delivered. In this context, we developed and integrated the back-end iRead infrastructure, a functioning game server, and applications according to the use cases defined by the end users and stakeholders.

We also delivered an initial exploitation and business plan for iRead, which will be updated annually throughout the project. Outcomes of our dissemination and communication effort include six peer-reviewed and accepted publications/conference presentations, and dissemination events including seminars and teacher and pupil workshops across multiple countries.

Moreover, the methodological approach of the iRead evaluations at schools has been devised and we have set out a strategy for running professional development sessions in schools.

Lastly, we developed an ethics strategy which will be updated on

Final results

The project has an Innovation focus and as such research is a small component of the work carried out. With this mind, incremental state of the art impacts include:
• The integration of four language domain models and related resources, applied to modelling of learning of three diverse learner groups for a number of applications (e.g. games, Reader)
• Game activities supporting three stages of reading fluency for a range of language levels
• Machine learning based methods for syntax analysis for four languages

Societal implications:
• More effective personalised teaching practices that scale across different educational contexts
• Improving reading motivation and skills of primary school children, and in turn lifelong learning and social opportunity
• Raising public awareness on the importance of reading in learning and the opportunities of digital learning

Website & more info

More info: https://iread-project.eu/.