Charleston School District Deploying Reading Intervention Software

• By Scott Aronowitz
• 11/09/09

Kanawha County Schools of Charleston, WV, the largest district in the state, has chosen Scientific Learning's Reading Assistant to provide reading intervention support to fourth- and fifth-graders in the district's 26 Title I schools.

Reading Assistant features a special, research-validated speech recognition technology, which "listens" as students read aloud and offers help and feedback when a student has trouble with a word. "Reading Assistant makes oral reading practice possible even when their teacher cannot be nearby," explained Jane Roberts, assistant superintendent of elementary education at KCS.

A committee of educators, reading specialists, and administrators approved the software as a key component of the district's response to intervention program, which this year will serve students struggling with reading in grades K through 5. The goal of the RtI program is to help students improve fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Several of the software's unique features led to the decision, including:

• Voice module that verbalizes unfamiliar words at a user's request;
• Contextual sentences and picture representations;
• Modeling selected reading so users can hear the correct pronunciation and inflection beforehand;
• Recording oral reading so users can privately play back and assess their own efforts; and
• Displaying quiz scores, fluency scores and more so students can take ownership of their own advancement while teachers are updated on their development.

A complete list of features, a detailed explanation of how the software works, and a demonstration can be found here.