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Students have a new, less stressful way to improve their reading â and itâs easier for teachers, too
By
Susanna Ray
Andres Villegas is a serious, quiet 11-year-old who has loved to read since he was 4 â especially Harry Potter and science fiction. But whenever he was asked to read aloud, his palms would get sweaty and heâd skip or mispronounce words, even ones he knew.
Then his fifth-grade teacher found a new program that lets students practice their verbal reading skills. Soon Andres was reading out loud to a computer that was invisibly evaluating his literacy, instead of having a teacher mark down mistakes on paper, and discovered it was âactually kind of relaxing,â he says. âIn front of the camera, I donât feel that stressed out. I feel like Iâm less distracted, and Iâm reading better â more clearly and not that slow â and I feel much more confident.â