Designing a Digital Reading Tool for Middle School Students and Teachers: A Grounded, User-Centered Design Approach

Abstract

Across English Language Arts classrooms in the United States many students experience low reading comprehension and struggle to stay engaged with their learning while working independently [1]. Our cross-functional team partnered with middle school teachers and students to develop an educational tool that provides reading skills support. Through three design thinking stages, we present our method, experiences, and initial outcomes developing a reading tool for middle school English Language Arts classrooms. In Stage One, we empathized with users to understand their needs and pain points and identified the problem statement: students often do not work well independently and struggle to stay engaged with reading. In Stage Two, we explored design solutions to address the problem statement and engaged in iterative prototyping. At the end of this stage, we developed an alpha version of our reading tool that included both annotation and reading comprehension check features. In Stage Three, we conducted initial user testing and evaluation of the tool in middle school classrooms (Teacher N = 3; Student N = 171). Teachers found they were able to implement the tool flexibly to fit their planned lessons and instruct students at different reading levels. Students worked independently with the tool, reported that it was usable, and perceived it would improve their reading comprehension. Overall, this study shows how a tool with annotation and metacognitive-check features can support students in the classroom, and offers next steps for the development of effective reading tools.