IIT Bombay develops TARA app to boost reading fluency in schools

In a fillip to the union school education ministries efforts towards addressing the learning crisis in India IIT Bombay has developed an innovative mobile app TARA Teacherrsquos Assistant for Reading Assessment designed to assess and improve oral reading fluency ORF in students across the countryThe move comes at a time when the quality of education remains a major challenge despite efforts to improve school attendanceAccording to the Annual Status of Education Report ASER 2022 on an average more than half of Class 5 students in India struggle to read even simple Class 2level texts highlighting a major gap in foundational literacyThe ASER reading test assesses whether a child can read letters words a simple paragraph of first grade level or a story of second grade level of difficultyThe 2022 report also highlighted a concerning decline in reading levels among Class 3 students across both government and private schools The percentage of students able to read text intended for second graders fell from 27337 in 2018 to just 20537 in 2022 This marks the lowest level since 2012 when only 21537 of students demonstrated the same abilityFor fifth graders the percentage of children able to read at least Class 2level text decreased from 50537 in 2018 to 42837 in 2022Besides this NEP 2020 report further emphasized that over five crore students are yet to achieve foundational literacy and numeracy FLN skills The COVID19 pandemic only worsened the situation with a staggering 9037 of students losing specific language abilities such as reading comprehension or picture descriptionAs reading serves as a gateway to all other forms of learning addressing this issue has become a priority for governments worldwide In India there is a concerted push to develop structured teaching methods and equip teachers with the tools to deliver effective education However one crucial area remains monitoring learning outcomes Regular assessments particularly of oral reading fluency are essential for measuring progress and guiding instructional strategies read a statement issued by the IIT BombayTraditionally oral reading fluency assessments require oneonone interaction with trained evaluators where attributes like accuracy speed and smoothness are manually scored However this method is timeconsuming and difficult to scale To address this challenge IIT Bombayrsquos team of researchers led by Professor Preeti Rao from the Department of Electrical Engineering have developed TARAmdasha mobile app that automates the assessment of oral reading fluency through speech processing and machine learning technologyTARA app works by analyzing an audio recording of a child reading an ageappropriate passage aloud It automatically extracts critical rubrics such as words correct per minute WCPM and also assesses expression by measuring phrasing intonation and stress in speech These factors are key indicators of the readers understanding of the text ldquoThe system is trained on expertannotated recordings and currently supports English and Hindi with its reliability matching that of human expertsrdquo said RaoThe app addresses a longstanding need for realtime data on student performance according to Dr Shailaja Menon reading pedagogy expert and Lead of the Center of Excellence in Early Language and Literacy at Tata TrustsTARA provides an endtoend solution by enabling audio recordings and generating performance data for individual students as well as for larger cohorts like classes schools and regions all accessible via a userfriendly dashboard Menon statedThe project has garnered significant attention and support receiving funding from the Tata Centre of Technology amp Design and the Abdul Kalam Technology Innovation Fellowship In a major milestone the app has been adopted by the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan KVS for assessing oral reading fluency in English and Hindi for Grades 38 covering over 7 lakh students across 1200 schools in IndiaThis initiative is now the largest oral reading fluency exercise ever conducted in the countryThe collaboration with KVS is particularly vital in light of the NIPUN Bharat National Mission which aims to ensure that all students achieve FLN by the end of Grade 3KVS schools are expected to lead the way in this mission serving as model schools for competencybased education and the adoption of learning outcome metricsFor now the TARA team continues to work closely with KVS to develop effective remedial strategies for students with the first round of assessments providing valuable data to refine teaching approachesLooking ahead the success of this initiative will be gauged through regular test cycles and subsequent assessment phases which will offer insights into how well the remediation strategies improve reading capabilities IIT Bombay is eager to expand partnerships and collaborations with the ultimate goal of providing evidencebased solutions to transform the school education system in India the institutes statement read