AutoTutor-ARC (adult reading comprehension) is an intelligent tutoring system that uses conversational agents to help adult learners improve their comprehension skills. However, in such a system, not all lessons and items optimally serve the same purposes. In this paper, we describe a method for classifying items that are "instructive,…

Twenty-first century literacy includes a mixture of digital and print literacy skills and strategies. AutoTutor for Adult Reading Comprehension is a web-based intelligent tutoring system that is designed to help adult learners develop effective reading comprehension strategies. Lessons span basic reading skills (vocabulary, word parts),…

Twenty-first century literacy includes a mixture of digital and print literacy skills and strategies. AutoTutor for Adult Reading Comprehension is a web-based intelligent tutoring system that is designed to help adult learners develop effective reading comprehension strategies. Lessons span basic reading skills (vocabulary, word parts),…

This article is written by two researchers and a teacher involved with the development and implementation of a web-based intelligent tutoring system for adults reading at elementary levels. A description of the tool is provided, followed by some of the challenges faced in designing, developing, and using the tool in adult literacy classrooms.

Although Traditional Ethiopian Orthodox Church Education (TCE) has been involved in literacy teaching for over two millennia, its potential as a model and an asset for adult literacy programmes has not been recognised by literacy providers. This paper examines how people of different generations acquire and practise literacy within TCE, including…

In the education context of sub-Saharan Africa, reading has received substantial attention in recent years. Reading skills and habits have been identified as a marker of success in formal education, particularly with the current international focus on reading achievement as a measure of learning. Meanwhile, adult literacy continues to be seen as…

This article is excerpted (with slight adaptations) from the reports "Using the PIAAC Literacy Framework to Guide Instruction: An Introduction for Adult Educators" (Trawick, 2017) and "Bringing Reading Instruction to Life: Supplement to the Introductory Guide" (Trawick, 2018). The Programme for the International Assessment of…

A common goal of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) is to provide learning environments that adapt to the varying abilities and characteristics of users. This type of adaptivity is possible only if the ITS has information that characterizes the learning behaviors of its users and can adjust its pedagogy accordingly. This study investigated an…

MOCCA-C is an assessment of adult reading ability designed for early diagnosis of reading problems, for formative assessment in reading intervention planning, for assessment of reading improvement over time, and for assessment of reading intervention outcomes. It uses both narrative and expository reading passages and it currently has four forms.…

The goal of this pilot study was to investigate the effects of morphological instruction on component literacy skills of adult struggling readers. Sixteen adults, most with decoding and encoding deficits, were randomly assigned to tutoring in either morpheme or syllable analysis to learn academic vocabulary and increase component literacy skills.…

This dissertation focuses on adult emergent literacy learning of English, which is underexplored relative to children's literacy learning and fully literate L2 learners of English. Although research has pointed to the fact that "adults often arrive [to literacy programs] with prior experiences of authentic reading and writing" (Lytle,…

There is little empirical research available on the substantial problem of adult low literacy rates, and limited educational technologies are available to address distinct instructional needs of this population. This paper reports on development and testing of a version of Interactive Strategy Training for Active Reading and Thinking (iSTART) for…

This paper introduces StairStepper, a new addition to Interactive Strategy Training for Active Reading and Thinking (iSTART), an intelligent tutoring system (ITS) that provides adaptive self-explanation training and practice. Whereas iSTART focuses on improving comprehension at levels geared toward answering challenging questions associated with…

Adaptive learning technologies hold great promise for improving the reading skills of adults with low literacy, but adults with low literacy skills typically have low computer literacy skills. In order to determine whether adults with low literacy skills would be able to use an intelligent tutoring system for reading comprehension, we adapted a 44…

This study assesses the extent to which machine learning techniques can be used to predict question quality. An algorithm based on textual complexity indices was previously developed to assess question quality to provide feedback on questions generated by students within iSTART (an intelligent tutoring system that teaches reading strategies). In…