Michigan Engineering News
Implementing a conventional reading curriculum as digital, map-like lessons with voice recording features made it engaging for students of all reading levels.
Experts
Elementary school students improve their reading skills more quickly with an interactive, digital-learning platform than with conventional, pen-and-paper lessons, according to a study from the University of Michigan, Saginaw Valley State University and Ypsilanti Community Schools.
The study showed that when Ypsilanti Community Schools’ elementary students accessed their reading curriculum through the Roadmap Learning Platform on school laptops at least twice a week, their scores averaged at the 48th percentile in an online test that assessed how their reading improved over the school year. Students using only the paper version of the same curriculum averaged at the 39th percentile, or below 61% of the tested population. The study is published in the Journal of Interactive Learning Research.
“It’s very exciting to see the quantitative impact line up with the anecdotal stories that we see on a regular basis. It reaffirms the value of what we’re trying to do,” said Elliot Soloway, professor of computer science and engineering, education and information, and co-director for the U-M Center for Digital Curricula, where the Roadmap Platform was developed.
Soloway and his partners at the Center for Digital Curricula designed the Roadmap Platform to boost student engagement, which nearly half of all teachers say is falling. Soloway’s strategy is to provide the interactive, digital content that Generation Alpha students expect. More than half of today’s elementary school students started using smartphones before they were 5 years old, according to the Pew Research Center.
“Smartphones have been their interactive tool of choice,” said Carlos Lopez, assistant superintendent of Ypsilanti Community Schools and co-author of the study. “The challenge for us was to create a platform that is just as engaging.”
The hope is that reengaging students will rescue their literacy, which continues to decline. Only 31% of fourth grade students in the U.S. were proficient readers in 2024, according to results from The Nation’s Report Card. Compared to 2019, fourth grade literacy declined by four percentage points.
The study results suggest that the U-M Center for Digital Curricula’s solution is helping. In school districts similar to Ypsilanti Community Schools, where half of the students received free and reduced lunch in 2022, the reading improvements can make a world of difference.
“For many students, the nine percentile gain we see can mean the difference between meeting grade-level expectations for reading standards or falling short,” said Anne Tapp Jaksa, professor of teacher education at Saginaw Valley State University and the study’s first author. “With the Roadmap Platform, we’ve transformed the static curricula into dynamic, collaborative lessons that enhance student engagement and learning.”
The Roadmap Platform engages students with lessons that are organized into graphical networks, called Roadmaps, that the students can navigate, rather than simply scanning paper assignments into a collection of digital forms. The map-like format allows interactive activities to easily supplement existing curricula, and it gives students agency over their learning by allowing them to navigate lessons unaided at their own pace, or in groups.
Independent work can be a challenge for students who aren’t reading at grade level, but the Roadmap Platform allows teachers to voice record directions and vocabulary words, and students can similarly record their answers. These features make independent work more accessible to struggling students.
“We have really vast differences between our highest and lowest scoring students, but because of Roadmaps, they get all the accommodations they need,” said Melanie Eccles, a fifth grade teacher at Ypsilanti International Elementary School who has used the Roadmap Platform for three years. “If students who read below grade level are able to hear the text read aloud, they’re gaining exposure to higher-level vocabulary and thinking skills, even while I’m busy helping other students.”
The level of accessibility that the Roadmap Platform provides is what makes it so appealing to the school district.
“The innovative work we’ve seen through this project is exciting to me because it meets kids where they’re at and brings them to the world of literature,” Lopez said.
The Roadmap Platform will be demoed at the Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning’s conference in Detroit March 19-21.
The Roadmap Platform was licensed to Roadmap Learning Inc. with the help of U-M’s Innovation Partnerships. Soloway and the University of Michigan have financial interests in the company.
