Principal Investigators
Bridget Dalton, Ed.D., CAST
Catherine Snow, Ph.D., Harvard Graduate School of Education
Funder
U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Educational Sciences (IES) (Grant Number: R305G050029)
Timeframe
2004– 2008
Description
In today’s knowledge-based, technology-driven economy, the need for strong literacy skills is greater than ever before. Yet many students, including bilingual learners, struggle to read even basic texts.
In the ICON project, researchers are developing and testing a technology-based instructional approach to support struggling readers, including English language learners, in reading comprehension. The digital reading environments have embedded vocabulary, strategy instruction, and bilingual supports. They are being tested in 5th-grade urban and semi-urban classrooms with high concentrations of struggling readers and students for whom Spanish is a first language.
In particular, researchers are exploring different ways of embedding vocabulary supports in digital texts. Through a variety of media, students interact with words in order to gain a more complete and useful understanding than they could gain by simply trying to memorize a definition. They are able to access written and graphical representations of the word's meaning, as well as Spanish-language cognates. They can then complete activities that require them to use the word in different contexts. Throughout these activities, a helpful agent appears onscreen to offer advice in both English and Spanish.
Access a presentation on the project from the IES Principal Investigators’ meeting, Washington, DC, June 12, 2008.
