Software Aimed To Improve Kids’ Reading
Kay Wijekumar, professor of Teaching, Learning and Culture (TLAC), received a $3.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences for her project that seeks to improve content area reading comprehension of 4th and 5th grade students attending high-poverty schools.
Wijekumar’s project, known as the Intelligent Tutoring System for the Structure Strategy (ITSS), got its start in July 2001 at Penn State University. The project has positively impacted content area reading comprehension levels of more than 15,000 participating 4th through 12th grade students in Pennsylvania, Michigan, California, New Mexico, and Texas.
The software is aimed to teach students five text structures (comparison, problem and solution, cause and effect, sequence, and description) and accelerates strategic comprehension of text (FASCT). Rather than just summarizing the material, students are asked to summarize their work using different text structures — encouraging the use of higher-level thinking. Under the guidance of highly trained teachers, ITSS teaches these strategies using individualized-adaptive methods for 30 minutes twice a week.
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This article by Justin Ikpo originally appeared in Transform Lives.
