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Presenter(s)
Rosemary Bogart
Boulder Valley School District Special Education Department
PO Box 9011
Boulder, CO 80301
Email: rosemary.bogart@bvsd.k12.co.us
Renee Clark
Freedom Scientific Learning Systems Group
480 S. California Ave., Suite 201
Palo Alto, CA 94306-1609
Email: reneec@freedomscientific.com
Providing technologies to support struggling readers and writers across the school district is an on-going challenge, and this collaborative project is providing just such opportunities for students in Boulder, Colorado. Summary Street "intelligent essay assessor" and WYNN literacy support software are being used at every district high school to help students compensate for learning disabilities while improving literacy skills. Summary Street is on-line software that gives immediate feedback for summary writing. WYNN literacy support is a comprehensive software package that includes a sophisticated screen reader, word prediction, talking spell checker, talking dictionary and numerous other tools that support reading, writing, and comprehension. These software programs can be used alone or in combination. Project rationale and implementation will be described, the software programs will be demonstrated, and improvements in student achievement will be discussed.
Reading and writing skills are critical to academic and vocational success, and despite the challenges imposed by learning disabilities, all students are held to the same standards in our competitive world. With such initiatives such as "No Child Left Behind" meeting state and district standards is increasingly important. This project responds to the need of one public school district to address the multiple needs of their students. Using the software provided by this project, the students are demonstrating that they can successfully:
• Utilize age and grade appropriate content materials;
• Produce written text that accurately demonstrates their level of knowledge and understanding;
• Develop skills in which they are lacking.
As an initial and critical component of successful project implementation, every district high school provided a contact person or "steward" to be responsible for equipment and software, and to arrange for technical support and training as needed at their school. After initial input from these "stewards", a grant from a local foundation provided seed money for the project. Researchers at the University of Colorado (CU) contributed computers and scanners as an in-road to introduce their on-line software program and research project into every district high school. An open house invited collaboration and participation by the local library system, local college disabilities offices and area businesses.
Operation of Summary Street and WYNN software as utilized in this project will be described and demonstrated. These products can be used alone or can complement each other. Summary Street is on-line software that gives kids immediate feedback about summaries they write. This tool is being developed by researchers at the University of Colorado to help improve reading comprehension. Students "submit" their summaries on-line and the software statistically analyzes their writing using a technique called "Latent Semantic Analysis". Students receive feedback on content: whether the topic was adequately covered and whether there was any plagiarism or redundant or irrelevant information. The Summary Street interface is user-friendly - it features feedback bars that can keep students engaged in the same way many video and computer games do. Summaries can be re-submitted as many times as students need. The "WYNN" literacy support software provides tools that improve text comprehension. ! It includes such features as:
• Text-to-Speech reads text aloud while it is simultaneously being spotlighted word-by-word. This helps students with decoding difficulties understand the material. Text can be read from the Internet, electronic documents such as Microsoft Word, or can be scanned in from class texts and handouts. Passages may be repeated as often as necessary and vocal pitch, speed, and quality of feedback can be easily changed for students with auditory processing problems. Hearing each word spoken as it is spotlighted reinforces reading skills and supports comprehension.
• Alternating between "Exact View" and "Text View" allows students the option to view text as it appears in the original documents they are reading (including graphics, charts, etc.) or reading from a highly customizable text-only view. In this way, students with decoding and visual processing issues can customize text size, spacing, and background color to simplify and improve visual presentation.
• Study tools that support comprehension, retention, and learning include a talking dictionary, thesaurus and spell-checker. Additionally, colored highlight pens and bookmarks are used to isolate key information, and text and voice notes allow students to make notes and reminders in context.
• Word prediction allows students with spelling and typing problems to write by choosing words from a list rather than having to type words out letter-by-letter. The word list is "predicted" according to frequency of word use, grammar and syntax, or first letter typed. Using this feature reinforces correct spelling and expands written vocabulary.
• Outlining helps students organize thoughts for writing.
• The "teacher lockout" feature allows the teacher to control which features the students have available in any given situation, such as a test.
Summary Street and WYNN are being used in combination to allow students with learning disabilities to access grade level content materials and to demonstrate their understanding by writing summaries. WYNN allows students with learning disabilities to fully utilize the features of Summary Street. Students can hear all instructions, guidelines, and summaries spoken aloud while live on the Summary Street website. Additionally, WYNN provides tools to support comprehension of the original text and tools to aid in creation of the summary.
Surveys at the beginning and end of the 2003-04 school year compared student grades before and after program participation, and provided qualitative feedback on program components. The number of students on teachers' caseloads receiving a C or better in regular education classes increased in Social Studies (69% in fall to 74% in spring), Science (65% in fall to 66% in spring) and English (66% in fall to 78% in spring). Teachers felt the most useful elements of the WYNN software were their students' ability to have text from the Internet and scanned texts read aloud, and their ability to highlight the important points on screen. Few teachers tried the Summary Street software and several commented that programs were generally more useful when introduced at the beginning of the school year. Like the teachers, the students felt that it was useful to have text from the Internet and scanned texts read aloud, and they appreciated the ability to highlight the important points on screen. They also valued the talking spell check, word prediction, and the ability to leave written and voice notes. Furthermore, they indicated that they finish work faster, turn in papers with improved spelling, liked the ability to see everything they are doing on one program, and the overall simplicity of the program. Both teachers and students felt that more time to use the programs would be beneficial.
In conclusion, use of WYNN literacy software was beneficial for students and teachers and improved student grades. Teachers were interested in trying the Summary Street software but had little opportunity. Summary Street has been shown to increase time on task, and content of materials is generally sufficient before summaries are handed in to teachers for grading. The school district has just begun a new project to provide WYNN software through its web site to students at all grade levels throughout the district and the special education department is participating in a study with CU to measure the efficacy of WYNN and Summary Street software alone and in combination. This important project has shown some promising results and can serve as a model for providing students with some of the tools they need for academic success.
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