Fluency Support - teleprompt.me

 Good reading is always more than just putting the letters together to make words. You need to read for comprehension, fluency, learning, association, and more. One strategy that helps new or struggling readers is Reading While Listening, that is where the reader silently reads while someone else reads aloud. The research available consistently demonstrates its favorable contribution to improving reading fluency. Since improving fluency is an instructional goal of elementary schools, we should always be on the lookout for tools that can assist in improving reading fluency.  Children who are reluctant to read or who have low rates of fluency can benefit from hearing a text read aloud while they follow in a print version. When they are able to hear the words and phrases, they increase their speed and prosody (intonation) appropriate to the material being read, and are able to identify more words. In this case, though, I not thinking of reading silently. Fluency is defined as the ability to read with speed, accuracy, and proper expression. To accurately understand what they read, children must be able to read fluently whether they are reading aloud or silently. When reading aloud, fluent readers read in phrases and add intonation appropriately. But getting kids to read aloud can be an issue, especially when they have reading issues. One problem with this is that some students read badly and slowly and thus they set a poor example for the others or may become ridiculed by others.  There are some great strategies though, I've always loved the Read to your Pet (or stuffed animal) one, and letting the reader pick the book is another good one. Here though is a free tool you can have them use by themselves. The tool I am considering is a teleprompter, which is something that adults who are on TV or give speeches use all the time. The website teleprompt.me provides a free service where you can paste in the text and the software will show it in a large format, not only that, the software will listen for when the words shown are spoken and advance only after it hears the words by darkening the words done.

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For this to work, all you will need is your computer with an internet connection, a microphone (if the computer has one built in that is fine), and some text to read. You don't need all the specialized gear that is used for professional speeches.  When you go to the site, your computer should ask if it is ok to use your computer's microphone. 

Go to the site: https://teleprompt.me/ and you will find the tools you need at the top of the screen. Don't forget to give it an OK to use your microphone.  There are options for four colors of text you can use with the black background. Try the yellow, after all the brain sees the difference between black and yellow as greater than between black and white - which can be helpful for many readers. You have four large font sizes you can use. There are three buttons, the Restart is the only one you should need. And there is a blank box that you can paste the text to be read into.  You can get some good text from library sites like Project Gutenburg, or you could just type some of your own. If you want to reader to focus on just one sentence at a time you can add extra returns after each sentence. 

Once the text has been added to the little box in the corner then it will appear on the screen and the reading aloud can begin. As the student says the words they get instant feedback on their progress, if they are too far off in their pronunciation then the system will not recognize that the word was spoken. And if they stop to ask you a question or go and get a drink the software will wait, holding their place. It isn't perfect but it could be a good tool to try for someone who needs some more practice reading aloud. 

The software is actually designed for people to use as a teleprompter tool such as for when making a YouTube video. In school, this could be a great thing to start using for the morning announcements that students usually read off of a paper.