ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the Foundations to Literacy component of the Colorado Literacy Tutor (COLit), a comprehensive literacy program that uses computer-based learning tools incorporating human language technologies to teach students to read and comprehend text. COLit’s overarching goal is to design an accessible, affordable, scalable, and sustainable comprehensive literacy program. The COLit is designed to teach people to read well and to improve their comprehension of what they read. Reading is essential to academic achievement and to producing literate citizens. Good reading comprehension is the goal of reading instruction. The chapter provides an overview of the main components of the Foundations to Literacy literacy program. These components include the following: Foundational Reading Exercises, Interactive Books, The MLE, Assessments, and Adaptive Individualized Study Plan. The chapter describes the system architecture, which enables real time interaction between students and various technology servers and media, and the speech, language, animation, and computer vision technologies within the Foundations to Literacy system.
