PROJECTS

READ-A-LOTL

About Research Learning Goals & Objectives Design Development

About Read-A-Lotl ↑

Background

Literacy skills, confidence, and reading fluency are vital to learning now, and children need to gain these skills early in order to set them up for future success. However, children today are currently experiencing a downward trend, and lack the support and practice necessary to build them. My goal was to design a platform that supported both reading comprehension and fluency development, scaffolding the independent reading process and building young learners' reading stamina in the process.

This project intially took place during March 2025-May 2025, with future iterations are still in development.

Research ↑

This was an independent sub-project of a larger, overall learning solution design I worked on with a team: Reading Recovery.

View the project and research here.

The research for that project highlighted two main points that we wanted to address:

• Building children's reading stamina
• Building their confidence in reading

Learning Goals & Objectives ↑

My initial concept was an interactive module that could serve as a reading buddy for children, reminiscent of assisted reading tools from my childhood like Leapfrog.

Goals

The broader learning goals of these games are:

• Learners will develop greater confidence in reading aloud by practicing fluency with grade-level texts and receiving real-time feedback.
• Learners will increase their reading stamina by engaging with progressively longer or more complex texts, building focus, comprehension, and retention over time.

Objectives

Through using the Read-A-Lotl reading platform, learners will be able to:

• Increase reading stamina by extending the duration of their independent reading sessions, as measured by their performance in scaffolded “reading challenges” that gradually increase in length and complexity.
• Demonstrate comprehension skills by completing end-of-section quizzes and interactive activities focused on recalling key details, identifying main ideas, and understanding new vocabulary.
• Build oral reading fluency and confidence by reading aloud with the interactive module, receiving feedback and support in a low-pressure setting.

Design ↑

As I began designing the game, I decided to structure the base off 3 levels.

Level 1

• Readings that are slightly lower than learners' current level, and are already familiar to them.
• Focus on sight words, simple vocabulary, giving picture clues, and emphasizing rhythm and repetition.
• Length: 5-10 minute sessions, including an extra 2-5 minutes for a short reading comprehension quiz.

Level 2

• Readings that match learners' current reading level.
• Focus on building vocabulary, multi-syllable words, and improving reading comprehension of story elements.
• Length: 10-15 minute sessions, with longer reading broken up into multiple sessions.

Level 3

• Readings that stretch than learners' current reading level, still within target reach but a bit more advanced.
• Focus on consistent fluency of longer passages, and reading comprehension of characters' motives and narrative memory.
• Length: 20-30 minute sessions, including an extra 2-5 minutes for a short reading comprehension quiz.

These levels would create a ladder-like structure, where the learners' practiced skill in each level would serve as a base as they moved up levels and expanded their skills.

While I initially intended to combine the readaloud activities and reading comprehension quizzes together, I wanted to be cognizant of the cognitive overload that might cause. Making learners, especially young learners, feel overwhelmed would not help them feel supported and independent, or build their confidence. So I ultimately decided to split the levels into two modes: Read Along & Time Attack.

Development ↑

I chose to build my game on Articulate Storyline, as it is a industry standard tool that I was eager to explore, had connections to an existing LMS. Additionally, Storyline shared many similarities with Microsoft PowerPoint, which I already had experience using to create games as a teacher.

Due to time constraints, as it was part of a class, I focused on developing a single session, so that I would have a prototype to demonstrate and test. Using the two modes, Read Along and Time Attack, as the base, I focused on two major features:

• Freeform comprehension questions: Learners were able to interact directly with the questions, with drag & drop or fill-in-the-blanks, and get direct feedback on their answers.
• Recorded reading: Using a speech-to-text API, learners can record themselves reading out loud, and the generated text from their recording is compared against the actual text, evaluating their pronunciation and accuracy.

Challenges

Once my initial prototype was developed, I did an demo for some initial feedback from my peers and professor. The UI and branding were considered age-appropriate and engaging for younger learners, however there were some suggestions for tweaks to UI elements and the layout.

• The digital countdown timer was considered to be a bit complex for the age group, as the story would end if it timed out.
• Incorporation of audio cues for instructions.
• Differentiating the icon buttons, especially those used for recording, to improve usability.

In my second iteration, I implemented a simple hourglass-style countdown timer that was not tied to the completion of the level. I also changed the coloring of the buttons to improve function communication - green for record, red for stop, gold for navigation, and blue for completion - and added audio cues to read aloud the instructions, and identify buttons by hovering. In addition, I also improved the visibility of the recorded transcript to identify issues.

Another big challenge I ran into was how learners would be able to record themselves reading. Storyline had no native text-to-speech function, so instead I needed to enable a web API using JavaScript. Although I had used JavaScript before, I was still more on the beginner side, and didn't quite have the existing knowledge to get it up and running by myself. Instead, I turned to AI--I used ChatGPT to help refine the code and troubleshoot the problems I was running into, and I was able to implement it.

I had originally chosen to use Webkit API, as it was easily accessible and relatively simple to work with. I could trigger the JavaScript through Storyline, and it would connect to the microphone on the user end. However, I ran into some issues: I was unable to trigger it to end manually, and it would time out way too fast for young readers. It wasn't flexible enough for the type of usage I wanted, so I went looking for alternatives.

In my second iteration of the project, I wanted to integrate the Microsoft Azure Speech-to-Text API instead. It would provide me greater flexibility in how long it would run, could be started and ended manually, and was more forgiving in its transcripts, which would suit my users - young children practicing their fluency - better. However, that came with its own challenges, which I am currently still working on: successfully transferring the generated text to where it can be checked by Storyline.

Try the speech-to-text demo here.