Savvas Learning Company Partners with Analytic Measures Inc. to Provide Oral Reading Fluency Tool with its K-5 Literacy Programs

Partnership offers automated assessment of students' oral reading fluency -- for testing at school or at home

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Aug 03, 2020, 11:08 ET

PARAMUS, N.J., Aug. 3, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Savvas Learning Company, a next-generation learning solutions provider for K-12 education, announced it is partnering with Analytic Measures Inc. (AMI), an educational technology company, to provide a fully automated assessment tool that uses artificial intelligence and voice technology to measure K-5 students' reading abilities. The new tool will empower teachers with time-saving features that quickly, easily, and accurately assess a learner's oral reading fluency skills while also helping educators address the combined COVID-19 slide along with summer learning loss.

For the start of the new school year, Savvas is pairing myView Literacy©, its leading core K-5 literacy program, and Reading Spot, a digital library, with AMI's Moby.Read™. Moby.Read uses advanced speech recognition and scoring technologies to automate the oral reading assessment experience and increase testing accuracy, in and out of the classroom. All reading audio is captured and recorded for teacher playback, a feature essential for blended (remote and in-person online) learning. Moby.Read is easily accessible on any digital device or computer that supports Google Chrome as well as by single sign-on through Savvas Realize™, the edtech industry's most versatile learning management system.

"Strong reading skills are the bedrock of any young student's education, and it's difficult to succeed in other core areas without that foundation. Assessing students' reading skills during this time of school closures and distance learning is more critical than ever," said Bethlam Forsa, CEO of Savvas Learning Company. "By providing teachers with a digital tool that utilizes artificial intelligence to do oral reading assessments, we are saving teachers valuable time by allowing them to focus more on instruction and improving students' reading skills."

Research-backed and standards-aligned, Moby.Read includes benchmark assessments that enable teachers to view students' progression over the school year for critical reading skills — accurate reading rate, accuracy, comprehension, and expression — while also providing reading level information. The Moby.Read oral fluency assessment also:

Models Fluent Reading by allowing students to hear a model reading and then re-read passages aloud.
Records Students' Performance in a play-back portfolio so teachers can listen to audio to inform instruction, further analyze results, or share with students and parents.
Engages Young Readers (Grades K-5) by giving students short passages to read aloud, then retell the passages and answer questions in their own voice.
Reports in Real Time key reading skill scores and shows trend data.
Provides Running Record Charts to record and track students' word analysis capabilities.
Offers Fully Automated and Self-Administered Testing to provide students independence while teachers benefit from automated scoring.

"Teachers need efficient, accurate reading assessments that are integrated with high-quality, engaging instructional content. This is critical to accelerate their students' reading growth," said Jared Bernstein, Ph.D., co-founder and president of AMI. "We are proud to partner with Savvas to bundle our products to create a new and better holistic reading solution for teachers and students. We share an absolute commitment to enabling all students to improve their skills and become strong, confident readers — and the collective strengths of both organizations put that goal squarely in focus."

Together, Savvas and AMI offer a seamless reading solution that enables continuous learning through instruction, assessment, and practice opportunities, allowing teachers to track student progress while motivating readers with titles that match their interests and reading abilities. Moby.Read is fully integrated with myView Literacy, the highly successful blended print and digital, interactive K-5 English language arts solution by Savvas. Moby.Read is also coupled with Reading Spot, a digital library that offers a curated collection of 3,500+ high-quality ebooks. A key feature of Reading Spot is that it allows teachers to create a "virtual book bag" personalized for each individual student. For both solutions, Moby.Read provides valuable data to inform instruction for greater student achievement.

Annie Leone, an elementary school teacher for the Pinellas County School District in Florida, has long searched for an integrated solution to effectively and efficiently measure all of her students' reading abilities — a periodic assessment that could take a week or longer.

"As a first-grade teacher, I struggle daily to find the time to quickly assess every student in my classroom in order to tailor differentiated instruction," Leone said. "Having the ability to determine my student's reading level in just 15 minutes, and potentially my entire class in one day, will help me better address each child's individual needs. This truly is a game changer for K-5 teachers like me."

ABOUT SAVVAS LEARNING COMPANY

At Savvas, we believe learning should inspire. By combining new ideas, new ways of thinking, and new ways of interacting, we design next-generation learning solutions that help prepare students to become global citizens in a more interconnected, digital world. To learn more, visit www.Savvas.com.

ABOUT ANALYTIC MEASURES INC. (AMI)

AMI is built on the principle that applying data science and technology in educational settings will accelerate learning. We apply our expertise in artificial intelligence, psycholinguistics, test design, and psychometrics to develop new literacy products and automated performance assessment services. To learn more, visit https://www.analyticmeasures.com/.

SOURCE Savvas Learning Company