Summary Statement
Introduction
The Gulf, a non-governmental organization, is seeking a grant to implement our Read to succeed! Program. This program aims to help all the at-risk students in our partner educational institutions to better their reading skills and capabilities at grade level, leveraging similar classroom material and textbooks as their peers. The project endeavors to ensure by the end of the year, students of interest will have at least doubled the speed of their reading and will have improved their skill-levels of reading by at least single or double grade. The Read to Succeed! The program bases its concept from contemporary research studies concerning useful reading instructions, and the fact that our affiliated institutions of learning had a significant number of learners who required aided reading. This program will need funding in the tune of $10,000 for conducting a need analysis, acquiring the necessary hardware, the development of the required software, and the training of staff within the educational institutions of interest.
Statement of Need
The Gulf is associated with five middle schools educational centers with a total of 1500, of which 378 are classified to be at risk of their reading performance for several reasons some of which include, attention deficit disorder (ADD), dyslexia, and learning disabilities or other language or economically-derived problems. The institutions are eligible for Title 1 funds, and if these learners are deprived of the opportunity to improve their reading skills, the studies suggest that they are more likely to truant and drop out of their learning programs in the respective institutions of affiliation.
Goals and Objectives
The primary objective of the Read to Succeed! Project is to make it possible for the at-risk learners and learners with reading disabilities to attain efficiency in their reading skills and capabilities to a point where can attain academic success in their respective institutions of learning and develop the reading skills that will prepare them for high school and tertiary institutions of higher learning. Research studies have demonstrated that poor readers, reading at a grade level or more behind, have the likelihood of engaging in disruptive tendencies n the classroom environment, truant from school, and are at risk of being high school drop-outs (SITE).
The main primary objective of this program therefore include:
- To help facilitate the continuation of regular classroom stay for the learning and reading-disabled learners, making them be at par with their peers by continued learning in the least restrictive setting.
- To make sure that learning disabled students can read or scan classroom material or textbooks through the aid of a multi-sensory reading alternative.
- To enable poor readers to gain acces to the general curriculum bu using assistive reading technology to help scan and carry out the reading of textbooks and other material useful within the classroom.
- Provide a measurable increase in the speed of reading, the span of attention, and comprehension. The objective is to enable the at-risk learners to double heir speed of reading and enhance their reading skills by a single or double grade at the end of the academic year.
Program Description
The Gulf’s “Read to Success!” project will help at-risk learners better their reading capabilities and skills by using five computers equipped with scanners and assistive reading software programs. Accordingly, these learners will be able to leverage all their classroom materials and textbooks to provide the learners with access to the general curriculum. The learners will, therefore, be able to enhance their reading speed and comprehension capabilities, which will ensure that the learners will be capable of attaining classroom subject proficiency. The “Read to Success!” project will also encompass a day of training for the classroom teachers and the reading specialist concerning the software program features and the operations involved while interacting with the software program.
The Gulf 100 Assistive reading Components
The Gulf 100 software program will be developed to function as a multi-sensory model to
aid students who face challenges when learning and reading. The software program will be created for learners within the five institutions who have difficulties in reading due to dyslexia, learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder (ADD), and other languages- derived problems. The Gulf 100 is a study-based assistive reading software program that will be created with the help and guidance of leading reading experts. The program will ensure that all learners in the institutions of affiliation have access to state and national curriculum and conform to the contemporary research focused funding requirements.
With Gulf 100 software, a learner with reading difficulties will have access to classroom materials and textbooks projected as an exact image on the display of a computer screen. The displayed text will then be read aloud utilizing the highest quality, most human-sounding synthetic speech while visually highlighting sentences or words on the computer display screen.
One significant merit of utilizing assistive reading technology, including the Gulf 100 software, is that learners will be able to access classroom material and textbooks or have enhanced access to general curriculum material. As such, the learners will be able to utilize similar material used in the classroom, and the learners will be able to proceed in their earning program in the least restrictive setting. The Gulf 100 will also utilize several tools in addition to the reading tools; these tools include audible tools to, assist in word decoding including spelling and syllabification; writing tools to assist in word-prediction and spell-checking; speaking tools and highlighting tools that help highlight relevant sentences and words form the web opening up a vast universe of knowledge. Further, the Gulf 100 the software will have the capability to manage a standardized or classroom test-taking; this feature offers more independence to the teachers and the learners.
Several studies support the utility of assistive reading technology to help learners with reading difficulties overcome reading problems and be able to attain speedy reading, increased attention, and enhanced comprehension (SITE)
Evaluation
The program will include a standardized reading test at the commencement of the “Read to Succeed!” program and after the end of the year to establish the increase in the speed of reading and comprehension among the learners with problems. Further, the learners with the ADD condition will be tested to establish the increased attention rates during reading.
Schedule/ Timeline
Activities
Proposed Accomplishment Date
Comment
Grant Proposal Submission
September 2020
Expected Grant Notification
November 2020
Requirement Gathering
December 2020
Development of the Gulf 100 Assistive reading software
January 2021 – May 2021
Obtaining hardware
June 2021
Testing and validation of the Gulf 100 Assistive reading software
July 2021
Training session for teachers
August 2021
Learners Introduction
August 2021
Initial reading Speed test
August 2021
Begging the initial 12-week phase
August 2021 – October 2021
Reading improvement evaluation
November 2021
Prepare a report of the Results
November 2021
Organization Capability
Program Continuation
Budget
References
Fälth, L., & Svensson, I. (2015). An app as ‘reading glasses’–a study of the interaction between individual and assistive technology for students with a dyslexia profile. International Journal of Teaching and Education, 3(1), 1-12.
Floyd, K. K., & Judge, S. L. (2012). The Efficacy of Assistive Technology on Reading Comprehension for Postsecondary Students with Learning Disabilities. Assistive Technology Outcomes and Benefits, 8(1), 48-64.
Gasparini, A. A., & Culén, A. L. (2012, January). Tablet PCs–An assistive technology for students with reading difficulties. In ACHI 2012: The Fifth International Conference on Advances in Computer-Human Interactions (pp. 28-34).
Ruffin, T. M. (2012). Assistive technologies for reading. Reading Matrix: An International Online Journal, 12(1).
Schmitt, A. J., McCallum, E., Hennessey, J., Lovelace, T., & Hawkins, R. O. (2012). Use of reading pen assistive technology to accommodate post-secondary students with reading disabilities. Assistive Technology, 24(4), 229-239.
White, D. H., & Robertson, L. (2015). Implementing assistive technologies: A study on co-learning in the Canadian elementary school context. Computers in Human Behavior, 51, 1268-1275.
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