Fluency Tutor for Google Now Available
Reposted with permission from blog.texthelp.com
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, nearly two-thirds of students in the US today score below proficiency in reading. To assist with this, Texthelp announced at the California Google Summit this past weekend the availability of Fluency Tutor™ for Google.
Designed for the Google Apps for Education environment, Fluency Tutor for Google is a levelled reading and assessment tool to help teachers support and assess emerging or struggling readers. Feedback from the Summit was great and the purpose of this post is to share with everyone how to access. A short overview video, in addition to details on how the program works (and how to access for free) are below:
[youtube id=”HiFfrzTPBQE”]
Great for time stretched teachers, Fluency Tutor for Google allows teachers to choose reading passages based on content, lexile level, or reading age and share them with individual students or groups of students via Google Drive. Students can practise and record their assigned passages at school or home. Dictionary, picture dictionary, and translation tools are also available to provide additional support. Recorded passages are automatically shared back with teachers allowing them to measure progress over time.
Research has shown that students who read and reread passages orally as they receive guidance and/or feedback become better readers. Repeated oral reading substantially improves word recognition, speed and accuracy as well as fluency. Fluency Tutor for Google provides a way for students to do this within the Google Apps for Education environment.
For more information, or to try Fluency Tutor for Google visit Texthelp.com/FluencyTutor. There you will find access to frequently asked questions and a link to download the application from the Chrome Web Store.
FREE features available with Fluency Tutor for Google include:
- The ability to share over 700 reading passages with students.
- Student access to support tools such as text-to-speech, talking dictionary, picture dictionary, and translator
- The ability for students to record themselves reading passage and listen back to hear how they did. Students can re-record an unlimited number of times.
- Teacher ability to view student use of support tools.
Teachers can also choose to upgrade to a free 30 day trial of the Premium version anytime, which provides access to tools for assessing recorded passages for word accuracy, hesitation, and other metrics using an easy-to-use scoring system. Powerful analytical tools and the ability to see students’ progress over time is also available.