Can AI help kids learn to read? This Indy school is seeing results

(MIRROR INDY) — When Dorla Williams sits down with students for their weekly reading test, she takes an old school approach.

The educator helps four squirmy kindergarteners take their seats around a semicircle table — standing up colorful, paper folders as dividers between each student — and makes sure they each have a pencil and paper ready.

“Everyone put your finger on No. 1 for me,” Williams says.

“Write the letter on line one that says AH,” she enunciates, using her pointer finger to draw attention to the shape of her lips as she sounds out the vowel. “What letter says AH?”

What’s not old school is what Williams and the educators at IPS’ Brookside School 54 will do with students’ answers.

They feed responses into a new technology platform, introduced this year at the near eastside elementary school, called Adira Reads. The platform uses artificial intelligence to pinpoint where students struggle and recommends reading groups that help the kids catch up.

It’s a part of a technology that Indianapolis nonprofit The Indy Learning Team is trying out this year in partner schools. In Brookside’s case, it comes as a new way to help keep students from falling behind as schools adjust to new legislation requiring kids to repeat third grade if they do not pass the state’s elementary school reading exam.

The technology also has become important for the school as it works with its high population of English-language learners, who are not only learning to read for the first time but also doing it in another language.

So far, the technology is proving helpful. Kindergarten students’ foundational skills have increased 20% at Brookside, according to Susan Appel, executive director of The Indy Learning Team. First graders have grown their skills 23%, and second graders have increased 18%.

“They’ve invested a lot in having really strong people teaching reading,” Appel said of Brookside’s team, “and what we found is that when we can get the right lessons in front of those teachers, then that’s when we see just tremendous growth.”

How Adira Reads works

Unlike benchmark exams the school was already using, the Adira Reads system allows educators to see in real time how students are doing.

The data can help group students by their needs, taking work that could take hours or even days for teachers and simplifying it down to a matter of minutes.

Students work on two lessons a week in small groups during a daily, half-hour reading support time.

The tests each week are short — usually five or 10 minutes with just a few questions designed to gauge how well a student grasped skills from the two lessons. Instructors then record students’ answers in the Adira Reads system and get a response back on which skills students have mastered and where they need help.

At Brookside, instructors regroup students every three to four weeks. If a lesson works and a student learns a skill they were struggling with, they’re moved to another group where they can focus on new or different skills. And if they’re not ready, they can continue to work on the tricky skill.

“What we can see in the data is that if kids get to a lesson and they start failing, then they’re failing all the future lessons,” Appel said. “We can provide instruction there, and it changes that path. So instead of spending six months or a year not passing, we can make a change in real time to get them back on course.”

Using AI to close literacy gaps

The Indy Learning Team piloted its technology over the summer and is now rolling it out for the first time this fall for school use at Brookside.

Appel stresses AI is not a replacement for classroom teaching, and for the most part, kids never see it. Instead, it’s used in the background to help educators organize lessons so teachers can spend more time in front of students.

About 415 kids are at Brookside this year, according to state data, and The Indy Learning Team partnership specifically targets students in kindergarten through third grade.

Those years are a key stretch for students as they approach the state’s third grade reading exam.

Brookside has consistently seen 60% to 70% of its students pass the state exam in recent years. The goal this year is to reach 80%. That’s part of why Brookside was so interested in partnering with The Indy Learning Team, Assistant Principal Alexis Johnican said.

“They look at what students are missing, and we’re closing those gaps,” Johnican said. “The kids are getting lessons that are catered to them so that they can pass with those skills that they need.”

Helping English-language learners

Brookside educators this year found students have needed a little extra help with piecing together words — a skill students need to master before moving on to other elements of reading.

More than a quarter of Brookside’s students are English-language learners. Most students are literate in their first language, Johnican said, but struggle when applying literacy concepts in English.

Adira Reads has helped identify some of the specific letter sounds that challenge these students. Letters like L, N and E all carry different sounds in the English and Spanish languages. Brookside educators can now single out these examples and spend a little extra time on them during small groups.

One kindergartener, for example, who is new to the United States and came to Brookside this year speaking very little English, was identified for a bootcamp with other English-language learners. Using the weekly quizzes and tailored instruction, her reading instructor said, the kindergartener is now passing all of her lessons.

“What I feel most excited about is that kids aren’t being left behind, that there’s a system to support them wherever they start,” Appel said.

How to support The Indy Learning Team

The Indy Learning Team has an agreement with Brightlane Learning and has its eye on adding school partners next semester, increasing its reach from about 300 students to 700 in the spring, and up to 2,000 next year.

The nonprofit is offering its programming this year with the support of a grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust but welcomes donations so it can continue to grow. (The trust also financially supports Mirror Indy.)

The Indy Learning Team is participating in the Indianapolis Gives Challenge now through 5 p.m. Dec. 12. The annual fundraiser organized by Indianapolis Monthly awards bonus prizes to local charitable organizations that complete challenges over the course of a 10-day giving campaign.

Donations can also be made year-round using The Indy Learning Team’s website.

Schools looking to partner with the nonprofit can contact Appel at sappel@theindylearningteam.org.

Mirror Indy reporter Carley Lanich covers early childhood and K-12 education. Contact her at carley.lanich@mirrorindy.org or follow her on X @carleylanich.