MoToLi Score is an Android application which can estimate reading fluency (number of words read per minute). It combines the accuracy of a multiple choice test result and the time taken to answer in order to estimate reading fluency.
6. Advantages
•Not reliant on enumerator’s judgment
•Easy to administer even in classroom setting
•Enable curriculum based assessment
•Customizable at the school/teacher level
•Capacity to reach most school
•Low cost and scalability
Thanks you for giving me the opportunity to present to you an innovative approach to reading fluency assessment using a mobile app called MoToLi Score.
MoToLi Score addresses a big problem where more solutions are needed – How can we easily, quickly, and inexpensively evaluate young students’ ability to read?
Donors and government agencies all require results in learning outcome to be measured. Currently assessments are done using EGRA. While EGRA is with no doubt an excellent testing method, its implementation is very expensive and time consuming. EGRA is also difficult to use as a monitoring tool during the implementation phase, and results often come after millions have already been spent.
We need more highly scalable alternatives.
MoToLi Score is a mobile application used for the assessment of reading fluency. It is based on the principle of multiple choice.
The user hears a letter or a word, and he has to choose between 4 possible answers.
The test result indicates the percentage of correct answers, and the time taken to perform the test. So let’s see why we take into consideration the time.
While using our core MoToLi application to teach and practice reading with activities, we noticed that the children who could read very well also answered quickly.
So beyond just measuring accuracy, we decided to also measure reaction time, and then to estimate the number of words read per minute. Last summer, we tested about 30 kids with EGRA oral fluency test and with Motoli score to establish the level of correlation between the 2 tests. The result of this “proof of concept” was a correlation ratio of 0.8. Of course this very good result needs to be confirm on a larger population, but it was very encouraging.
MoToLi Score has value for all stakeholders:
-First students, who if they have access to a smartphone can use it forself assessment
-Teachers, - continuous assessment, screening and diagnostic
-Program managers, - monitor program efficiency
-Donors, - evaluate their programs
-For Governments it can be a truly scalable tool to evaluate progress in the reduction of illiteracy
What are the strengths of MoToLi Score:
1. Not reliant on enumerator personal judgment
2. Easy to administer even in classroom setting
3. Enable curriculum based assessment
4. Customizable at the teacher level
5. Capacity to reach all school
6. But the main assets are its reduced cost and its ability to Scale
Cost saving opportunities for the use of a digital test compared to a classic oral fluency test are astronomical:
1. No training of enumerator is required and knowledge of the language is not necessary
2. Assessment time is drastically reduced. With several devices, an assessor could even test several kids at the same time, and each test takes only a few minutes.
3. Results are immediate, and a data collection system could enable the consolidation of result very fast
So what it the plan?
[1] First we want to perform a large scale testing in Senegal with Cybersmart to improve calibration methods, and validate the correlation with Oral reading fluency test
[2] We will also develop an open source software, which can be easily customized by the users
[3] Then we want to create a data collection system and [4] design a statistic module
[5] We will later need to promote MoToLi Score for a wider use of reading assessment
Thank you for listening to us, we will be happy to discuss with you how you can help us to make Motoli Score available at a large scale.