LibraryBot: Personalized Self-Leveling Readers Tailored to Your Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

I have spent some time trying to find the right leveled readers. I love books that focus on specific phonics and word structures, but - phew - they are small!

This year, as my second reader made her way through the alphabet, I found myself lugging home stacks of (blessedly) tiny volumes featuring characters like Bob or Jane and their pets. Occasionally, I struck gold and discovered books that aligned perfectly with her Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and piqued her interest.

In teaching 9th and 10th grade English Language Learners (ELLs) with a wide range of reading levels in English, I had a similar challenge. In order to foster meaningful class discussions around a single text, I would sometimes rewrite the same story at multiple grade levels to ensure that every student had access to the material at a level close to their ZPD.

These experiences have been fueling my excitement this week. Building upon the foundations and technology we developed for the successful CoachBot MVP, we are now test-driving a chatbot capable of diagnosing and co-creating leveled readers.

We trained MxRead on inputs from CCSS ELA (Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts) and various OER (Open Educational Resources) word lists and syntax progressions. The aim is to provide personalized reading materials that are not only tailored to each student's reading level but also affirming of their unique interests.

We overcame some prompt challenges by referring to story archetypes and assigning the system prompt two different roles: Diagnostician and Storyteller. Each role contributes to the ongoing feedback loop, keeping the chat within the user's ZPD. The new integration from CoachBot is text-to-speech and speech-to-text, allowing emerging readers to voice their side of the chat and MxRead to voice strategic parts of the conversation.

Please reach out or comment if you'd like to test an early version of this app as early as next week!