Soliloquy Reading Assistant 4.0 is addressing a major education challenge:  According to analysis of 2005 data that was gathered by National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), only 31% of 4^th graders that year were proficient readers.

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/nrc/reading_math_2005/s0004.asp?printver Proficient meaning that they could read and comprehend the material at their grade level.  These results suggest that basic reading instruction process that is being used in our schools is not working. Furthermore, these statistics have not dramatically changed in the past 13 years, which suggests that the federal effort to improve reading instruction is not improving things.  It’s been recognized that the problem is that schools do not have the resources to devote the one-on-one guided oral reading that children need to develop proficiency in reading. Soliloquy Reading Assistant helps with this by acting as an active listener that can correct students when they misread a word.  Soliloquy Reading Assistant works by having a student read text that is displayed on the screen.  Real-time feedback is then provided to the student.  In some instances, the feedback comes from a voice that provides instruction to the student on how to pronounce the word properly.  In other instances the word is color highlighted to indicate how close the student came to pronouncing the word properly.  As the student reads aloud into a headset microphone, Soliloquy Reading Assistant "listens" along, guiding the student through the text and providing audio and visual help for words the student is struggling with.

Soliloquy Reading Assistant is a marvelous application of speech recognition.  The vocabulary domain that exists is well defined.  It consists strictly of the text that is presented to the student to be spoken.  It appears to have the potential to solve one of the most critical education challenges that exists. The need to increase reading proficiency should be apparent. Reading proficiency is one of the most important abilities students acquire as they progress through their early school years. It is the foundation for learning across all subjects, can be used for recreation and for personal growth, and equips children with the ability to participate fully in their communities and a larger society. www.soliloquylearning.com 877-235-6036, Jon Bowers, jon.bower@soliloquylearning.com