| Working with adult reading skills instructors,
Stottler Henke developed an intelligent tutoring system that
automatically assesses and diagnoses each student's specific
reading skill deficiencies and tailors its instruction accordingly.
It employs innovative probabilistic techniques to estimate proficiency
levels of interrelated, high-level and low-level reading skills.
A scaffolding mechanism helps students learn difficult skills
by presenting exercises that build upon skills already mastered.
In addition, the system helps students understand the relationship
between the various aspects of reading and how they can be put
together to achieve a high level of comprehension. By encouraging
reflection, the software helps students to understand the text
in more depth.
Studies show that adult reading instruction is significantly
more effective when the reading material is related to each
student's personal interests and career goals. Thus, the reading
tutor includes an authoring tool that enables course designers
to create relevant reading material without programming. For
example, a manufacturing company could include reading material
related to manufacturing process guidelines and instructions,
so employees can acquire reading-skills level and learn work-related
material at the same time.
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