Editors: To observe sixth graders using Summary Street, contact teacher Cindy Matthews at Platt Middle School in Boulder, (303) 499-6800.
University of ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ at Boulder researchers have received $8.4 million in grants from the National Science Foundation to put software that helps students read into ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ school computers.
The unique software is designed to provide individualized help to K-12 students working on reading and comprehension skills.
"We know our software is good and we have tried it out in selected schools so we know it can be used effectively," said Walter Kintsch, professor of psychology and principal investigator on the project. "Much of our effort in the next five years will be directed at putting these systems into schools all over ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ and making sure that they are used widely and wisely.
"Computers in education hold enormous promise -- but that promise has so far been quite unfulfilled."
The ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ Literacy Tutor project includes two parts: interactive books with a set of cartoon-like tutors that build the literacy skills of K-6 readers and a software program called Summary Street that emphasizes comprehension and learning from text for older students.
"Many children find reading a book alone difficult," said Kintsch, who also directs the ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥-Boulder Institute of Cognitive Science. "Interactive books provide feedback and comments on what you are doing and make it easier to continue."
The co-principal investigators on the project are an interdisciplinary team of ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥-Boulder psychologists and computer scientists including Donna Caccamise, Ron Cole, Richard Olson and Lynn Snyder.
The interactive books allow students to select a "coach," an on-screen tutor that talks to students and helps them understand and pronounce words. It also asks them questions about what they are reading and gives feedback on their responses. In addition to being able to read text aloud to students, efforts are under way to enable the computer to understand children's voices so the software also can understand what children say to the computer.
The interactive books diagnose specific problems a student may be having and give them special tutoring. This allows students with a wide range of reading abilities to receive individualized instruction in a way that a teacher never would have enough time to do.
A second software program, called Summary Street, enables students to get feedback on written work summarizing reading material and to go through multiple cycles of revision -- also without a teacher's help.
Summary Street grades the content of what a child has written by using software, which was invented at ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥-Boulder. Writing and revising summaries is an effective way to learn and would be used by teachers much more often if it weren't so time-consuming to grade them.
"We don't want to replace teachers and we don't want to make more work for them," Kintsch said. "Instead, these tools should make their instruction more effective."
In a two-year study at Platt Middle School in Boulder ending in 1999, the summaries of students who used Summary Street were significantly better than those of students who did not. The program proved to be so helpful that it is still in use, said teacher Cindy Matthews.
Summary Street uses software invented by ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥-Boulder psychology Professor Thomas Landauer and two former doctoral students. The software, which also grades the content of essay exams, doesn't provide students with all the answers, Kintsch emphasized, but just flags areas for possible improvement.
The immediate feedback on their writing keeps students absorbed in their work, said Summary Street program manager Eileen Kintsch. The software also has some game-like aspects that are highly motivating for students.
The ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥-Boulder researchers want to hear from teachers interested in using the software in their classrooms. To contact the researchers call (303) 735-3602, e-mail donnac@psych.colorado.edu or visit the Web site at and click on "recent ICS grants."