UF Lastinger Flamingo Reading App

The Flamingo Reading App is committed to providing equitable quality education opportunities for all through accessible research-based literacy instruction. 

The Flamingo Reading App equips teachers with the technology to synchronously instruct students in explicit and systematic instruction rooted in the science of reading. Easy-to-use for students, tutors, and teachers, the app provides all students and teachers with access to materials, including phonological awareness activities, word work to build decoding skills, an interactive whiteboard, and a library of virtual books. 

If scaled, the app could positively change lives by reducing the opportunity gap by providing high-quality reading instruction to PreK through eighth-grade students. The app can be used by parents, educators, tutors, and pre-service teachers, exponentially increasing the number of students that would benefit. 

The pandemic resulted in children of color falling further behind. A Tutoring Corps can increase instructional time, alleviating the loss of learning for our most vulnerable children.

National Reading Crisis

Literacy plays a critical role in the future success of a child. Unfortunately, the mastery of reading is not easy for all children. Many students experience significant problems in learning to read (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). The lack of reading proficiency in the United States is sobering. In 2019, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reported that just 35% of a representative sample of 4th-grade students read grade-level material proficiently. Children with reading and learning disabilities require more frequent, small-group literacy interventions to improve their reading outcomes (Connor, et al., 2014). Furthermore, the reading gap between children of color and their peers is significant and growing over time.

Teacher-Tutor Preparation 

Teachers are in a position to impact their students' reading performance; despite their desire to do so, many haven't received adequate preparation in evidence-based reading instruction. Approximately half of the states in the U.S. require that pre-service teachers receive literacy education, and those states often require a single reading course. 

Teachers alone cannot solve the problem. The pandemic resulted in many children of color further behind. A Tutoring Corps can increase instructional time, alleviating the loss of learning for our most vulnerable children.

The Flamingo Reading App is an online solution to providing evidence-based, high-dosage tutoring virtually. We have developed virtual professional development (PD) experiences based on our face-to-face model that has a proven record of impacting student outcomes. This virtual PD provides a comprehensive framework for teaching reading to students of all abilities (e.g., students with dyslexia; English language learners). The PD includes a software application and virtual teaching platform (Flamingo Reading App) that allows teachers to implement evidence-based, engaging reading instruction in a virtual setting.

Research indicates that high dosage tutoring (i.e., > 3 days per week) in groups of three to four students is effective for increasing student learning (Robinson et al., 2021).  The Flamingo Reading App increases the opportunity for students to receive high-dosage tutoring beyond the school day by trained volunteers or teachers.

We posit that a trained National Corp of Tutors/Teachers using the application will allow for additional learning time for students struggling to acquire reading skills. As a result of the pandemic, children lost significant reading instructional time. The addition of learning time and access to high-quality, high-dosage tutoring is possible through our online professional development and the Flamingo Reading App.

Target Population

The App was developed to support vulnerable children across the United States that have had significant learning loss because of the pandemic. Once tested has been completing, it can be used globally. 

Testing: Understanding User's Needs

The app has been tested with teachers in Pinellas County, Florida, and Charleston, South Carolina, both high-minoritized school districts. Working with these teachers, the development team has discovered what is needed for the teachers to be able to successfully use the app (such as bandwidth issues, the ability to share screens to meet district virtual schooling requirements). 

Long-Term Solution

1. National Tutoring Corps

The app was designed with the long-term goal of developing a national tutoring corps that can provide high-quality, evidence-based reading lessons to students from any location. The tutoring corps will seek diverse tutors that represent the communities they are working in. Tutors will receive training from the Lastinger Center and will be required to demonstrate mastery of their learning. 

2. Family-School Partnership

We know that learning does not end when the school day ends, whether that is virtual or in-person. The app allows for sharing of lessons with parents so that learning and use of materials can continue outside of the classroom. 

Accessibility

The app is organized into three tiers:

- Basic

- Premium 

- Premium Partner

With the understanding that funding is limited in education, the Basic level is free for all users. 

In alignment with the Challenge's dimension of equitable classrooms, the App is a solution to increasing engagement in remote and hybrid environments, being a bridge between educators and parents through shareable lesson links and access to the app at home. 

The solution works towards supporting teachers and tutors in facilitating personalized instruction in virtual settings through the ability to create and design lessons based on student needs and interests. A long-term goal of adding AI algorithms will ensure teachers' and tutors' decisions match the students' needs using clickstream and assessment data and reduce human bias. 

The Flamingo ReadingApp was tested in Charleston County School District (CCSD) and Pinellas School District during the 2020 Summer Session. Initial testing of the App resulted in significant gains for students. In a six-week virtual summer camp, 276 educators in Pinellas School District used the word work portion of the app with students. Students had a 15% gain in phonics scores and an effect size of d=.80 (Pullen & Duggins, 2020). Similarly, over 800 students received instruction using the App in CCSD (N=836 K-8 below the 10th percentile on district assessments). Results indicated that students who received instruction using the App and Flamingo Reading Model made up the reading loss that occurred during the COVID months. The app is still in the prototype stage as it has not yet deployed v2 of the tested app within a community.

Synchronous Learning

Based on the science of reading, the Flamingo Reading App is the only online program that allows for synchronous teaching between students and educators. Appropriate audiences include pre-service teachers, tutors, parents, classroom teachers, and interventionists, allowing for consistent learning from the classroom to the home and enabling broader positive impacts on student reading comprehension. 

Book Library Paired with Small Group Model

The App's book library provides access to students and teachers with 1000 books in English and Spanish, eliminating the need for physical books. While other publishers may provide online book libraries, the app provides the content pedagogy needed for the student to read and comprehend the book successfully. 

Partnerships 

There is a vast opportunity for partnerships with additional publishers, allowing for increased access to books for children and teachers. Furthermore, there is potential to integrate with learning management systems, enabling easy login access to teachers, students, and parents. Data from the app can be made available for clients and researchers, allowing for efficacy research and targeted recommendations for future app development. 

Current

The app currently serves 448 educators, impacting 8,960 students. 

One Year

We plan to serve 50 school-based reading coaches, impacting 500 teachers and 10,000 students. 

Additionally, we plan to use the app with 500,000 students who are reading below grade level across the state of Florida. Families of these students will have access to the Reading App. 

Five Years

Within five years, we estimate that we will serve 1,200 reading coaches and 60 regional reading coaches impacting approximately 18,000 teachers and approximately 360,000 students. 

We will also have 500,000 students directly using the app annually beginning 2021-2022. 

Progress towards impact goals is being done with the following metrics:

1. CORE Phonics Assessment

2. Accounts: Platform and Active Users

3. Client Partnership

CORE Phonics Assessment

The CORE phonics assessment measures a student's phonics knowledge. A pre-test and post-test are conducted by educators to measure student gains. 

Accounts: Platform and Active Users

We will measure the total number of accounts in the solution as well as the number of active users to measure impact numbers as well as the location of the accounts.

Included in this tracking is a sub-category of families using the solution. These families are part of a targeted initiative involving families with children who are enrolled in kindergarten through fifth grade and are performing below reading level.

Client Partnership

Tracking client partnership is key to measuring progress as greater partnerships allows for further development of the app, in turn creating a more robust and impactful solution. 

The Lastinger Center for Learning is an entity within the College of Education at the University of Florida. The University of Florida Foundation is a 501c3 organization. 

Four full-time staff, one part-time staff, and two contractors work on the solution team. 

Team Experience

The project team is composed of literacy subject matter experts, former educators, educational technology product managers, and experienced developers. This combination of work and life experiences makes the team well-positioned to understand the needs of educators that the solution is serving, both from an educational understanding as well as technology. 

Feedback Loops

The subject matter experts and former educators on the team are continually involved in leading professional development with reading instructors across the nation. This work allows the project team to collect feedback from educators in the form of focus groups and feedback surveys that guides the development of the solution. In fact, feedback received from testers in January 2021 led the project team to add additional development items to the App's backlog. 

Partnerships

As an organization, the Lastinger Center has strong partnerships with the Florida Department of Education and several large school districts in Florida and South Carolina. These partnerships allow for an open flow of communication between high-level stakeholders and the Lastinger Center's Chief Academic Officer, Dr. Paige Pullen (project lead). In turn, this insight ensures that there is alignment between state and district priorities and the development of the solution. 

Team

Our project's female-led team is composed of diverse team members with vast experiences working across the United State and globally. These experiences include work in Botswana, Australia, the Middle East, and suburban and urban schools in America. Housed within the University of Florida Lastinger Center, the Center's mission statement to:

"...Create equitable educational systems where every child and educator, regardless of circumstances, experience high quality learning every day.." 

guides the development of the solution. 

User-Research

Our project team highly values working with an inclusive variety of school districts for conducting user research. The team currently works with high-minoritized suburban K-12 school districts and has goals to expand to working with the rural and urban school districts. The app is appropriate to be used with PreK, so a partnership with early childhood educators is also on the product roadmap. 

Advisory Board

During the 2021-2022 school year, the project team plans to create a diverse advisory board composed of parents, teachers, pre-service teachers, district-level personnel, and educational technology experts to support the development of the solution.

We are applying for support in developing and expanding the Flamingo Reading App in order to provide teachers with virtual teaching resources based in the science of reading and in turn impact student's reading proficiency and ensure they are reading on level by third grade. if accepted, we would benefit from being connected with potential funders, technology development support, and connecting with others in the industry. 

Business Model

We seek support relating to developing our business plan. As an education innovation hub in a college of education, we have significant expertise and subject matter experts in reading instruction and technology development. As a center within a college of education, we must fund all of our work with business development, grants, and philanthropic efforts. Although we are experienced in securing external funding, creating a business model for a web-based application is new for us. This guidance would set us on a trajectory for success, allowing us to have the greatest impact on students while also managing our ongoing internal costs and future development.

Product/Service Distribution

As the request for support for a business model, product distribution is an area where we would benefit from support. We see product distribution as a part of our larger business model and provide the ability to reach our goals for serving children across the United States and internationally.

Public Relations

We seek support for publicity and social media campaigns, identifying appropriate audiences, and coordinating events and conferences. 

Monitoring & Evaluation

The Lastinger Center has a proprietary learning management system. We aim to link the web-based app to our own and other LMS models used in schools. To maximize the value of the ReadingApp, we are planning a sprint that includes student progress monitoring and evaluation, the collection of clickstream data, and eventually AI algorithms that will inform teachers and tutors on students' needs. 

We seek to partner with StoryWeaver, as their initiative of providing reading materials in native languages to children is linked to the goal of the App for providing evidence-based reading instruction to students. This cannot be done without access to books in the student's native learning so we see a potential partnership with StoryWeaver. 

We also seek to partner with TalkingPoints. Our app can be used by parents in partnership with the lessons students are receiving during classroom instruction. Partnership with TalkingPoints could greatly expand communication and reach to families. 

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