Castlewellan Primary School improves pupils’ reading fluency and comprehension levels with Fluency Tutor
The School:
Castlewellan Primary School in County Down, Northern Ireland, is proud to offer pupils a wide range of resources to support learning; especially its state-of-the-art ICT resources, which allow for interactive learning. With this in mind, they recently purchased Fluency Tutor, Texthelp’s online software solution designed to assess and improve pupils’ reading and comprehension levels.
Fluency Tutor is an online software solution from Texthelp Systems, designed to assess and improve pupils’ reading and comprehension levels. The solution encourages pupils as young as five years old to develop their fluency and comprehension levels whilst improving their reading skills. Fluency Tutor is easy to use and can be accessed both at school and in the home.
The outcomes:
When Headmaster, Niall McLean, joined the school, he noticed that there was a difference in the reading levels of boys and girls and, with some of the boys, struggled to get them to concentrate on their reading. After seeing Fluency Tutor in an educational magazine, he decided to trial the software.
Following a successful trial that saw reading scores improve, Niall decided to implement the software in school. He explains: “The school has been using Fluency Tutor for just under a year, mainly within the Year 6/7 composite class. I have also been making excellent progress with a 7 year old reluctant reader who I tutor using Fluency Tutor.
“The reason for purchasing Fluency Tutor was to enable teachers to monitor actual reading performance in terms of fluency, comprehension, accuracy and expression. Fluency Tutor ticks all of these boxes.
“The fact that Fluency Tutor is an online software solution was crucial in the decision to purchase as ICT can have the ‘WOW’ factor where children are concerned. PCs and laptops are quickly replacing pencil and paper. If an e-school is to effectively teach the pupils within it, then that school must be able to distinguish technology that raises the academic bar, is relevant to the learner and has a high motivational factor. Fluency Tutor qualifies in regards to these criteria.”
The benefits:
“There are a number of Fluency Tutor features that I feel are of particular note. Firstly, the child-friendly interface is appealing to young readers. It is colourful and visually aesthetic and it ‘draws’ the reader into the screen. Secondly, the recording feature means that children can complete the assessments at home, since the program is web based and teachers can listen to and assess the testing whenever they wish. Thirdly, in all assessment, it is vital that the children receive constructive, accurate feedback. Fluency Tutor provides understandable charts and allows for teachers’ comments within the children’s own login area.
“In future, we plan to feed the programme into Year 4/5 and 2/3 classes as well as our Moderate Learning Difficulties unit and perhaps get parents on board with Fluency Tutor too.”
To see in detail how Fluency Tutor is being used at Castlewellan Primary School and how it is helping specific individuals, watch our video case study here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq94NMGm0bc&list=UUZAhYwqmDNE3ii6mHLR2Cg&index=1&feature=plcp
For further information on Fluency Tutor, please contact Elaine Emerson on Tel: 028 94428105, email elaine@texthelp.com or visit our website www.texthelp.com/fluencytutor.
Issued : 25.01.12 Ends Ref: TH018
For press information please contact Hannah Riordan, Livewire Public Relations, on 020 8339 7440 or email: hannah.riordan@livewirepr.com.
About Texthelp Systems Ltd
Texthelp Systems Ltd is the worldwide leader of literacy software solutions provided through three core business divisions: Education, Speech Services and Publishing. Texthelp has been developing assistive technology software for the learning disabled community since 1996. The aim has always been to provide the most comprehensive cutting-edge technology available to provide inclusive education.
Based in Antrim, N. Ireland and with offices in the US, Texthelp is currently experiencing a period of sustained year on year growth. The company has a reseller network covering over 20 countries.
Texthelp has been a Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Award winning company for eleven years and won numerous product, innovation and marketing awards.
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