Helping Poor Readers and ESL Students

© 2002 Speaking Solutions Inc.

Helping poor readers and ESL students is one of the big challenges, and biggest rewards, of teaching speech recognition. Poor readers may be below grade level readers, primary speakers of a foreign language, or struggle with dyslexia.

Poor readers benefit greatly from using speech recognition software. First of all, they practice reading to the computer. Secondly, poor readers are often poor writers. Talking to the computer will build confidence in both reading and writing. An average reader will read an enrollment story in about ten minutes. However, it may take hours for a poor reader to plod through the short stories.

Choose among these links to learn how to assist poor readers.

Pre-reading Assistance and Dialogues

One of the important strategies is to allow students to pre-read the enrollment/training stories before they step up to the microphone. The entire transcript of our recommended readings can be found by clicking these links.

Seven Strategies for Using Speech Recognition with Poor Readers

Article was provided courtesy of Karl Barksdale
© 2000

Approximately 20 percent of my students are either poor readers, can't enunciate English words, or don't read English at all!

In the new speech age, students who can't read aloud confidently and clearly are severely disadvantaged. Simply put, students who can't read, can't be effective with computers. This puts them at severe risk when it comes to acquiring a good job in the future.

To me, the biggest technological skill I can give students is to help them learn to read aloud confidently. I have learned over the past six years of teaching speech recognition that most poor readers simply do not read aloud very often. Speech recognition software is an excellent tool to help them practice reading aloud without embarrassment.

The faster and more powerful your computer processor, the less students have to read. If you have a Pentium II computer, they will be reading a long time. With a Pentium III 500 or higher, the amount of reading required for the computer to adjust to a voice is reduced by 80%.

Here are seven strategies that I use:

1) I have students pre-read the enrollment stories. Students take the stories home and practice reading the scripts aloud under parental supervision several days before they do their enrollment training. (Click here to learn how to download those stories.)

2) We read the enrollment script pages (see number 1) aloud together in small reading groups before the students train their computers. At this time, I model how to speak clearly and continuously to a computer. I read a single sentence or phrases first, and then I allow them to read the same text back to me. I make corrections in their individual pronunciation at this time.

3) During enrollment training, you can whisper phrases and sentences in a student's ear to help them say the words. This works very well and we do it all the time. I have them pre-read the exercises before they dictate them, emphasizing enunciation skills. Avoid single words. Speech recognition is more accurate when speakers use phrases and complete sentences.

4) I ask reading assistants, sometimes volunteer aides and college students, to work one-on-one with the students as they work through the training. Of course, it's necessary to train the assistants in the software too, so they understand what they're trying to accomplish with our poor readers.

5) I also have each of my poor readers read five enrollment stories, about one every four days, simply to practice their reading. Their speech accuracy usually improves as well, so this practice is very effective.

6) I have my students in this category print all of their work daily so we can track their progress on given words, sentences, and phrases.

7) If a student makes considerable progress with their enunciation, I have them re-enroll or retrain their computers under the new name. The reason for this is, as they improve, they leave their old speech user profile in the dust, and they need to start over using their newly acquired dictation voice. This also gives them a chance to do some additional reading aloud over familiar material. This helps build reading and speaking confidence. (Note: I once had a student who took three, 55 min. class periods, with coaching, to read the first enrollment training script. Five weeks later, he read the same enrollment script in under 20 minutes without assistance. This was a cause for celebration!)

My class gives poor readers a chance to read and speak to a computer for at least 30 minutes each day. After a few weeks, I really notice the improvement. It's a shock to me to learn how many students slip through our system without learning how to read well or to speak clearly. However, they can't get past me! I bring all the resources I can to bear upon this reading deficit.

Help a student read aloud confidently and you're teaching them how to use a computer on the job for the rest of their lives.

Five Strategies for Using Speech Recognition with ESL Students

© Karl Barksdale, 2000

An increasing number of non-English speakers are learning the advantages of using speech recognition software to help them acquire English. As many as 10 percent of the students at Farrer Middle School are mastering English as their second language. They come to us at different English skill levels. Generally, we prefer to start students on speech after they have been in their ESL program 3-6 months and have some rudimentary English decoding/reading skills. Our speech recognition program requires that we:

A. Teach students to speak up with confidence. At first, the number one issue is confidence. Most ESL students are naturally shy about speaking English. However, as soon as they learn that other students are busy talking to their computers too (and aren't really listening to them) they loosen up and begin speaking up. We tell them to "shake the walls" of their cubicles.

B. Help students read the enrollment scripts clearly. The next hurdle is completing the enrollment training successfully so the computer can understand the words ESL students say. Reading aloud fluently and clearly is a skill everyone must master. For ESL students, this requires special advanced preparation.

To help our ESL students, we print the enrollment/training stories and read them aloud in reading groups prior to stepping up to the microphone. This helps them practice their enunciation skills prior to the enrollment training. Please click here, Pre-Reading Assistance and Dialogs, to learn how to download those stories for Dragon NaturallySpeaking 6.

C. Help students dictate and read fluently. Speech recognition software loves consistency. The Hispanic accent is particularly friendly to speech recognition. Spanish speakers learn very consistent vowel, diphthong, and consonant sounds from their mother tongue, which, when applied to English, gives them a consistency of speech. While there are obvious letter combinations that cause difficulty -- such as cl and rly in the word clearly -- Spanish vowels and diphthongs can be "memorized" by NaturallySpeaking through the enrollment and training process and will produce consistent speech/text even when a heavy accent is present.

4. Whisper coaching. After enrollment training, there is a lot of one-on-one enunciation practice. We have ESL aides "whisper coach," a technique we teach in our workshops. It usually takes one coach for every 3 ESL students.

5. Emphasize pronunciation first. We provide many opportunities for students to read to the computer. We have found that short sentences and paragraphs work best. We have students say each sentence up to three times, without correcting errors, trying to make improvements through pronunciation first, before they begin correcting errors and training mispronunciations.

Teaching our ESL students has been a great thrill. The progress that they make almost daily is amazing!

The Origin of the Stories

When Speaking Solutions visited Dragon NaturallySpeaking's development team in the spring of 2001, we were asked, "What would you like to see improved in Dragon NaturallySpeaking?"

Our response was instant, "More, easy to read stories for students who struggle with reading."

The Dragon team, huge supporters of education, instantly accommodated. A story writing competition was held between senior honors creative writing students at Provo High School. The schools were asked to write short stories on a third or fourth grade reading level. The top stories were edited and sent to Dragon, where they were integrated into NaturallySpeaking 6, 7 and 8.

Stories for Children (Reading for Children )