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Evaluation of a Reading Tutor with Synthesized Speech Feedback for Dutch Speaking Elementary School Children with Reading Difficulties

Leen CleurenLukas LataczYuk On KongMaaike Vandermosten

Werner VerhelstHugo Van hammePol Ghesquière

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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

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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

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Introduction

• A general intervention approachLet 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

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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

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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.

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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

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Participants

• 10 pairs of 2nd – 6th grade elementary school children• Normal IQ, Dutch speaking, normal vision and hearing• 8 girls + 12 boys• Age range: 6.75-10.75 years

• Individual matching on chronological age, IQ, mastery text reading level (AVI)

no significant group differences (ps > .10)

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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

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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

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/k/ /w/ /a/ /t/Herhaal jij het

woord ook eens? En dan mag je verder gaan.

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• Example: Boy, 2nd 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.

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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

pretest intervention intervention posttest follow-up

week 1 week 2 + 3 week 4 week 5 + 6 week 7 week 11

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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

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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

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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

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Real Word Reading Results

Real Word Accuracy Variables

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2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

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C I C I C I C I

OMT-Standard score RWRT_1syl-Errors RWRT_2syl-Errors RWRT_3+4syl-Errors

Pretest Posttest Follow-up

p = .003; R² = .36p = .04; R² = .19

p = .09; R² = .17p = .15; R² = .20

p = .15; R² = .10Average children:

p = .02Average children:

p = .06

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Real Word Reading Results

Real Word Speed Variables

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

C I C I C I

RWRT_1syl-Time RWRT_2syl-Time RWRT_3+4syl-Time

Pretest Posttest Follow-up

p = .16; R² = .43p = .11; R² = .29

p = .32; R² = .58p = .15; R² = .20

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PseudoWord Reading Results

Pseudoword Accuracy Variables

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10

20

30

40

50

60

70

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C I C I C I C I

Klepel-Standard score PWRT_1syl-Errors PWRT_2syl-Errors PWRT_3+4syl-Errors

Pretest Posttest Follow-up

p = .07; R² = .37

p = .16; R² = .23

p = .05; R² = .40

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PseudoWord Reading Results

Pseudoword Speed Variables

0

50

100

150

200

250

C I C I C I

PWRT_1syl-Time PWRT_2syl-Time PWRT_3+4syl-Time

Pretest Posttest Follow-up

p = .01; R² = .57

p = .01; R² = .55

p = .03; R² = .46Clinical children:

p = .01

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Story Reading Results

Story Accuracy Variables

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5

10

15

20

25

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C I C I C I C I

AVI-Mastery level* SRT_Mastery-Errors SRT_Instructional-Errors

SRT_Frustrational-Errors

Pretest Posttest Follow-Up

p = .11; R² = .19

p = .30; R² = .14p = .01; R² = .61

Average children:p = .03

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Story Reading Results

Story Speed Variables

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

C I C I C I

SRT_Mastery-Time SRT_Instructional-Time SRT_Frustrational-Time

Pretest Posttest Follow-up

p = .23; R² = .20Average children:

p = .01

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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

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Summary

• Reading accuracy– Posttest

intervention > control: 1syl + 2syl real words, instructional level stories

average children:intervention > control: 3+4syl real words

– Follow-upintervention > control: 1syl + 2syl real words, 1syl + 2syl + 3+4syl

pseudowords, OMT SSaverage 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?

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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

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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.

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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?