Using EMBRACE to Encourage Dual-Language Dialog and Reading Comprehension

• In Event: From Text to Context: Storybooks as a Platform for Dual-Language Learning

Abstract

Many dual language learners (DLLs) in the US struggle with English reading comprehension: Only 18% of fourth-grade Latino DLLs in Arizona are classified as proficient or better in reading (NAEP, 2019). One contributor to this problem is that many Latino immigrant parents have stronger oral than written language skills in Spanish and English, and thus have difficulty helping their children read in English. Also, although these parents are supportive of their children’s reading, they may be unaware of strategies for helping children comprehend text, namely, question-asking during shared reading. The major goal of this project is to help Latino DLL children and their parents increase their language use and improve their reading comprehension using a modified version of the EMBRACE (https://www.movedbyreading.com/) application. The application teaches children how to become active readers by having them use action to simulate the text (as described below). EMBRACE has proven effective in multiple randomized clinical trials, often with effect sizes of d > 1.0.
The EMBRACE system is developed to simultaneously foster the reading comprehension of both DLL Latino parents and their children using principles of embodied cognition, dual language learning, and personalized learning technologies. The reader uses an iPad app that presents texts and pictures (Figure 1). After reading most sentences, the app prompts the reader to move the pictures to correspond to the sentence. For example, the reader might read the sentence “Visitors to Hawai’i can see the lava coming to the top of the volcano and making the island bigger,” and move an image of lava to the top of the volcano. This manipulation requires the reader to use perception and action systems during reading comprehension. If the manipulation is incorrect, an intelligent tutoring system (ITS) provides hints as to how to complete the manipulation. In addition, the ITS continuously updates a model of the reader’s abilities, and the ITS changes vocabulary practice that readers receive, giving children additional practice with words that they struggled with. Consistent with research in bilingual education, EMBRACE provides support in Spanish for help with comprehension in reading English. The Parent ITS teaches parents when and how to ask their child “dialogic-type” questions (e.g., “Why does the lava move to the top of the volcano?”). Questions that stimulate dialogue have been demonstrated to increase comprehension, vocabulary, and syntactic complexity of conversation. Our ongoing randomized clinical trial using EMBRACE has parents and children read each of six, multi-chapter texts at least four times, twice in Spanish and twice in English. The Parent ITS develops a model of the parent’s tendency to ask concrete, abstract, and relational questions at appropriate moments during the story, and then based on that model, adaptively provides the parent with example questions at times when those questions might be relevant.
For this presentation, we will discuss principles used in the development of EMBRACE and the Parent ITS, literature supporting these principles, and pilot work with DLL children and their parents to ascertain usability and solicit parent suggestions.

Authors

• Ligia Gómez Franco, Ball State University
  Presenting Author

• Arun Narayanan, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Tri Nguyen, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Chris Blais, Arizone State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Erin Walker, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• M. Adelaida Restrepo, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Arthur Glenberg, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author