Reading with AI. Can Technology Foster Reading Acquisition and Promote Educational Equity?

While educational technology (edtech) has been the subject of numerous studies and shows positive effects on different outcomes, evidence regarding digital tools for learning how to read in first grade remains limited. In this study, we investigate whether the use of a gamified digital platform developed by an edtech company can successfully improve first-grade students’ French language skills by targeting their proximal development zone, in particular low-performing students.

During the intervention, teachers receive a one-hour training to use the platform and free access to the most recent version of the tool. They are encouraged to use it 40 minutes per week for all students in first grade. When they connect for the first time to the platform, students need to answer an initial test, so that the algorithm behind the tool forms a prior about their academic skills. Once this first test is completed, students face exercises adapted to their skills: neither so hard that they would be discouraged to try again, nor so easy that they would not be challenged. And the algorithm keeps updating its estimate of the skills of students. During their use, students receive rewards (stars, stories, progress in a fictitious world) based on their duration of use and on their academic progress. Thus, the tool aims at both adapting the exercises to students’ needs and developing their motivation and engagement in reading.

To know more about this project, you may read our AEA registry for the trial.