SBIR Phase II: Computer-based co-reading for students with reading disabilities

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II will produce a system that students will use at home or at school to improve their oral reading. The product will help thousands of public-school districts that are facing a severe shortage of teachers who provide Special Education services to almost 14 million students with dyslexia or other reading disabilities. The project could make teachers more effective in several ways: (1) students will practice independently, and receive appropriate feedback from the computer, customized by the teacher for the individual needs of the student, (2) teachers will be freed up to concentrate on teaching new concepts or to provide individualized attention to resolve specific problems, and (3) teachers will have digital data to track student progress, a mandated requirement of the Federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) act. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will produce a system that students will use at home or at school to improve their oral reading. This system will use a cloud-based infrastructure and end-user application to perform computer-based co-reading with the student that will (1) validate the student’s reading accuracy and offer remediations when the student makes a mistake, (2) allow the student’s specialized teacher to customize the reading experience and the remediations, and to monitor the student’s progress, (3) use engaging book content, (5) capture audio of the student’s oral reading, and (6) provide to the teacher with the captured audio, the corresponding text of that audio using Natural Language Processing, and the student’s mistakes. This system will be evaluated in public schools with sufficient numbers of students to apply to the Institute of Education Sciences for What Works Clearinghouse certification. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.