Project Activities
Through a 2014 contract from the NAEP program at the National Center for Education Statistics and with SBIR Phase I funding (completed in 2016), the team developed a prototype of Moby.Read, a tablet-based app where grade school students read a passage aloud and the speech-recognition software generates an assessment of oral-reading fluency in real-time. In a pilot study at the end of Phase I, the researchers tested the prototype with 99 grade school students and four teachers. Results showed Moby.Read generated scores correlated with traditional human-rated oral reading fluency assessments, and that most students indicated preferring Moby.Read to teacher-administered tests. Phase II focused on extending content, including Spanish text, adding more diagnostic scoring, and implementing cloud-based tools for aggregation, review, and management of scored performance samples. After development was completed, researchers conducted a pilot study with 130 grade 4 students to assess the feasibility and usability, fidelity of implementation, and the accuracy of Moby.Read for assessing reading fluency compared to traditional human-scored assessments.
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Products and publications
Product: Moby.Read is a tablet-based speech recognition app that grade school students use to administer oral-reading fluency assessments in real-time. The app is intended to replace face-to-face oral reading assessments done by teachers, and to save time and increase the accuracy of the assessment. Through the teacher dashboard, Moby.Read aggregates assessment results at the class and individual student level, and provides teachers detailed reports on types and frequency of errors to inform instruction. Moby.Read is implemented in and out of classrooms to supplement oral reading instruction and improved fluency.
Success Story: https://ies.ed.gov/sbir/AnalyticMeasures.asp
Video Demonstrations:
Moby.Read Phase I Prototype: https://youtu.be/4gb0nmbVfQo
SkillCheck Phase I Prototype: https://youtu.be/_97B3FUAA9Q
Recognition: 2020: Finalist for an SIIA Codie Award
Projects and Publications
Bernstein, J., Cheng, J., Balogh, J., & Downey, R. (2020). Artificial intelligence for scoring oral reading fluency. In H. Jiao & R. Lissitz (Eds.), Applications of artificial intelligence to assessment. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publisher.
Cheng, J. (2018, September 2-6). Real-time scoring of an oral reading assessment on mobile devices[Paper presentation]. Interspeech, Hyderabad, India.
Project website:
Questions about this project?
To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.
