Forward Approach to Literacy
Most educational software begins with a backwards approach, creating a product and then commissioning research to see if it works. Our Story is different. We started by creating learn-to-sing software. Through word-of-mouth, we learned the singing software had an unexpected, yet welcome, effect – it helped an 11-year-old girl in middle school overcome her struggle with reading.
When our company founder, Carlo Franzblau, reached out to academics to see if the reading impact could be real, he was initially met with surprise, bemusement and disinterest. But when he contacted Dr. Susan Homan, a literacy professor at the University of South Florida’s College of Education, she listened. Dr. Homan’s expertise on emerging readers and adolescent literacy had taught her the importance of “alternative texts” like song lyrics to engage failing readers. She also felt that if students were singing on-screen lyrics, they were also reading. So if the software inspired them to sing a song 10, 15 or 20 times, the repetition just might improve their reading.
Fascinated, Dr. Homan agreed to conduct a small pilot study with 48 students at West Hernando Middle School in rural central-west Florida using scientifically based research – the only kind of research that could conclusively determine a link between our software and reading improvement. Working together with Dr. Robert Dedrick, an expert in educational research and statistics, and Marie Biggs, a doctoral student, she developed the following methodology:
- Students were identified as struggling readers by their failure on the reading portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT).
- Students were divided into control and treatment groups carefully matched by grade level, gender, reading teacher and instructional reading level.
- Students in the treatment group used the learn-to-sing software 3 times a week, 30 minutes per session for 9 weeks.
- Both groups continued to participate in core reading and remediation classes.
- Pre-tests and post-tests were administered to all students to assess their reading level and progress.
- The assessment measure was the Qualitative Reading Inventory.
The results from the first pilot were nothing less than astounding: the control group made essentially no progress while the treatment group, on average, improved their reading by more than an entire grade level. Click here to see a chart with these scores Follow-up comparisons five months after the initial research showed that while the students in the control group continued to make minimal progress, students in the treatment group sustained and continued their improvement. Click here to see a chart with these scores.
In the world of literacy research, these results are exceptional. Because of this, Dr. Homan has presented her findings to the International Reading Association. Equally important, an article about her research has been accepted for publication in a prestigious, peer-reviewed journal, Reading Psychology. To read the full text of Dr. Homan's first Research Abstract from November 2005, click here. Read more.
