1 Evaluation of a Reading Tutor with Synthesized Speech Feedback for Dutch Speaking Elementary School Children with Reading Difficulties Leen Cleuren Lukas Latacz Yuk On Kong Maaike Vandermosten Werner Verhelst Hugo Van hamme Pol Ghesquière

2 Introduction Children with reading difficulties (RD) in Dutch –Dutch is an orthographic transparent language: grapheme-to- phoneme-rules are much more consistent than in English –RD are characterized by speed problems, rather than accuracy problems Early, regular and adequate intervention needed –To support reading development –To support appropriate functioning in all school domains

3 Introduction Intervention to speed up reading? –Not focused on phonological skills (e.g.; knowing how to split up a word in its constituent phonemes)  improves accuracy but not speed –Focused on … READING READING READING!! (To overcome the ‘Matthew effect’) –What kind of reading?  still subject of discussion

4 Introduction A general intervention approach Let children read aloud under supervision Give feedback on what they read –Repetitive versus non-repetitive strategies Repeated reading: read the same passage over and over again until a preset criterion is reached Wide reading: no rereadings, always new reading material –Different feedback techniques General feedback: indicates whether ‘performance’ is right or wrong Corrective feedback: idem + provides help to correct the error

5 Introduction Daily reading practice necessary –Not always possible due to classroom issues and governmental health insurance constraints –A computerized reading intervention program could offer a welcome solution  error detection and child tracking: speech recognition  feedback and decoding assistance: synthesized/digitized speech + ability to highlight words or word parts = SPACE project Speech Algorithms for Clinical and Educational applications

6 Remark Synthesized versus digitized speech Digitized speech sounds like recorded speech; it is speech that is converted into a digitized format and then reconverted back into speech. Synthesized speech is computer generated speech that is created by concatenating pieces of recorded speech that are stored in a database, based on various acoustic/phonetic algorithms. Programs can be ‘open’ so that its user is not restricted to the learning material chosen and implemented by the authors of the program.

7 Present Study Evaluation of the Dutch Reading Tutor with synthesized speech feedback developed within the SPACE project Can substantial improvements in reading accuracy and speed be obtained in reading disabled elementary school children that used the SPACE Reading Tutor?  intervention study –Instructional-level non-repetitive text reading –Corrective phoneme-by-phoneme feedback e.g., speelgoed

8 Participants 10 pairs of 2nd – 6th grade elementary school children Normal IQ, Dutch speaking, normal vision and hearing 8 girls + 12 boys Age range: years Individual matching on chronological age, IQ, mastery text reading level (AVI)  no significant group differences (ps >.10)

9 Pre- and Posttest Materials Paper-and-pencil tests –One-Minute-Test: 1 list of words –Klepel: 1 list of pseudowords –AVI test: stories Computerized tests –Real Word Reading Test: 3 lists of words –PseudoWord Reading Test: 3 lists of pseudowords –Story Reading Test: stories accuracy and speed independently registered 1-syl, 2-syl, 3+4-syl (pseudo)words separately assessed 3 stories at mastery, instructional and frustrational level

10 Intervention Instructional-level stories (commercial reading materials) Presented on a touch screen, paragraph-by-paragraph No re-readings, always new reading material Wizard-of-Oz-method: no computer speech recognition Help for a word: child touches word and receives phoneme-by-phoneme feedback Errors: erroneous word highlighted + phoneme-by- phoneme feedback, child asked to blend phonemes together

11 /k/ /w/ /a/ /t/ Herhaal jij het woord ook eens? En dan mag je verder gaan.

12 Example: Boy, 2 nd grade, Instructional level = AVI1 poes kijkt naar de boom. daar zit nog een poes. op een tak, heel hoog. jan ziet lien. lien woont hier pas. ze zoekt haar poes. dag, zegt lien. hoe heet jij? ik ben jan, zegt jan. lien kijkt naar de poes op het hek.

13 Design Randomized pretest-posttest matched-group design –Matched pairs randomly assigned to intervention or control group –20-minute reading sessions; 4.5 hours of training in total pretestintervention posttestfollow- up week 1 week week 4 week week 7 week 11

14 Motivation Improvement graph after each session Verbal encouragement by the Reading Tutor Stickers that could be exchanged for a present at the end of the study

15 Analysis Strategy Effects of intervention –Mixed model analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) Pretest of each variable: covariate ‘Matched pair’: random factor Intervention-Control: between-subjects factor –Measure of effect size: R² Influence of performance level on intervention effects –Why? Because not all children obtained a ‘clinical’ pretest OMT and Klepel score –Therefore: Clinical Average –How? Intervention-Control: effect allowed to vary at pair level ‘group*performance’ added to the fixed part of the original model

16 Results Feedback: use of synthesized speech  speech synthesis was good: sounded naturally, was clearly audible and well understandable  children got quickly used to the reading tutor’s voice and were very understanding w.r.t. occasional mistakes

17 Real Word Reading Results p =.003; R² =.36 p =.04; R² =.19 p =.09; R² =.17p =.15; R² =.20 p =.15; R² =.10 Average children: p =.02 Average children: p =.06

18 Real Word Reading Results p =.16; R² =.43 p =.11; R² =.29 p =.32; R² =.58 p =.15; R² =.20

19 PseudoWord Reading Results p =.07; R² =.37 p =.16; R² =.23 p =.05; R² =.40

20 PseudoWord Reading Results p =.01; R² =.57 p =.01; R² =.55 p =.03; R² =.46 Clinical children: p =.01

21 Story Reading Results p =.11; R² =.19 p =.30; R² =.14 p =.01; R² =.61 Average children: p =.03

22 Story Reading Results p =.23; R² =.20 Average children: p =.01

23 Summary Aim of intervention study: investigate whether improvements in reading accuracy and reading speed could be obtained in reading disabled Dutch speaking elementary school children that used the SPACE Reading Tutor with synthesized speech feedback Design: randomized pretest-posttest (-posttest) matched-group design in which each child of a matched pair was randomly assigned to an intervention or control group Intervention: individualized intervention sessions focused on non-repetitive instructional-level text reading with phoneme-by-phoneme feedback when an error was made or help was asked for

24 Summary Reading accuracy –Posttest intervention > control: 1syl + 2syl real words, instructional level stories average children: intervention > control: 3+4syl real words –Follow-up intervention > control: 1syl + 2syl real words, 1syl + 2syl + 3+4syl pseudowords, OMT SS average children: intervention > control: 3+4syl real words, frustrational level stories –1 counter-intuitive result at both posttest and follow-up! intervention < control: mastery level stories  suggestions?

25 Summary Reading speed –Posttest intervention > control: 1syl + 2syl real words average children: intervention > control: frustrational level stories –Follow-up intervention > control: 1syl + 2syl real words –1 counter-intuitive result at follow-up! intervention < control: 1syl + 2syl + 3+4syl pseudowords  explanation found

26 Conclusion Despite a very limited amount of training (M = 4.5 hours), beneficial influence of extra-curriculum practice with the SPACE Reading tutor on the reading performance of elementary school children, mainly w.r.t word and pseudoword reading!. Both clinical and average performing children benefit from exercising with the Reading Tutor. Gains obtained for both reading accuracy and speed.

27 Thank You For listening! To Lukas Latacz (VUB), Yuk On Kong (VUB), Werner Verhelst (VUB), Hugo Van hamme (KUL, ESAT), Pol Ghesquière (KUL, ORTHO) Questions?