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Practising Reading Fluency with Virtual Voice Assistants: Theoretical Perspectives and Experiences

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Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2020)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1473))

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Abstract

The ability to read fluently is important the participation in social and public life, the main reason for primary and secondary school students to acquire this ability. The Multilingual Readers’ Theatre is a method used to teach reading fluency by means of reading aloud. In the Multilingual Readers’ Theatre, students actively and cooperatively learn to read dialogical texts, with different reading roles distributed among the students. This method requires two or more students to take on the roles in a dialogical story text which is read aloud in theatre. As part of the reading training, students are required to practice their reading role outside of the classroom; however, some students lack a reading partner for practice at home. This paper demonstrates the Amazon Alexa application (Skill) designed to fill this gap by serving as a reading model, reading partner, and provider of student feedback for the purpose of reading fluency training. This paper reports on the conception, development and evaluation of a Skill prototype. The main aim is to investigate the degree of user acceptance and willingness for future use as response to the prototype design concept development.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Media Education, University of Education Weingarten, Kirchplatz 2, 88250, Weingarten, Germany

    Sara Durski & Wolfgang Müller

  2. English Department, University of Education Weingarten, Kirchplatz 2, 88250, Weingarten, Germany

    Ute Massler

Authors
  1. Sara Durski
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  2. Wolfgang Müller
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  3. Ute Massler
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sara Durski .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA

    H. Chad Lane

  2. University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA

    Susan Zvacek

  3. School of Engineering, University of Ulster, Newtownabbey, UK

    James Uhomoibhi

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Durski, S., Müller, W., Massler, U. (2021). Practising Reading Fluency with Virtual Voice Assistants: Theoretical Perspectives and Experiences. In: Lane, H.C., Zvacek, S., Uhomoibhi, J. (eds) Computer Supported Education. CSEDU 2020. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1473. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86439-2_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86439-2_5

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-86439-2

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