Intelligent Tutor for the Structure Strategy (ITSS) at Literacy.IO

Features

Grade Level
Grades 4-5
Grades 6-8
Intervention Group Size
Individual Student
Intervention Lesson Time
30-44 Minutes Per Session
45+ Minutes Per Session
Technology Requirements
Desktop/Laptop/Tablet
Internet Connection
Headset

ITSS is a web-based intelligent tutoring system that provides modeling, practice, interactive activities for learners, assessment, scaffolding, and immediate feedback so that students can learn and apply the text structure strategy to read and comprehend effectively. ITSS is a student-managed learning system where children progress at their own pace through a lesson path that adapts to students’ needs. Students are invited to become comprehension detectives, identifying the text structure and completing a systematic set of comprehension tasks. There are 200 lessons available in ITSS, covering a variety of genres. 

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Publisher Statement (Click to View)

Intelligent Tutor for the Structure Strategy (ITSS) is a web-based program designed for students from kindergarten to eighth grade. ITSS aims to strengthen students' literacy skills by teaching them how to comprehend and navigate texts encountered in classrooms and everyday life by understanding their logical structure.

Key objectives of ITSS include:

1. Understanding and Identifying Higher-Order Text Structure: ITSS teaches students to recognize and follow any text's logical structure to select important ideas, logically connect them as a main idea, extend the main idea to a summary by adding supporting evidence, and extrapolate inferences. These skills are crucial for improving comprehension. The program focuses on three higher-order text structures: Comparison, Problem and Solution, and Cause and Effect.

2. Improving Reading Comprehension: Through systematic practice, ITSS aims to significantly enhance students' reading comprehension abilities through its structured approach of teaching students how to navigate and understand different types of texts by identifying and applying their structural elements. Research studies, such as those referenced in the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Intervention Report (Wijekumar et al., 2012; 2017), have shown positive effects on reading comprehension and related tasks in grades 4 through 8 when students used ITSS for regular sessions of 30 to 45 minutes per week. According to the WWC Intervention Report, ITSS has demonstrated statistically significant positive effects on reading comprehension in controlled research studies. Its focus on higher-order text structures to develop main ideas and summaries, as well as extrapolate inferences, helps students develop critical reading skills necessary for academic success.

For the best results (e.g., sound, video playback, automatic scoring), ITSS should be accessed using Google Chrome.

Alignment with Evidence-Based Recommendations

Recommendation 1: Decoding Multisyllabic Words
NIP
Not included in program

The panel did not rate this recommendation because the program is not designed to support instruction for the teaching of decoding multisyllabic words.

Recommendation 2: Fluency Building
NIP
Not included in program

The panel did not rate this recommendation because the program is not designed to support instruction for the teaching for fluency building.

Recommendation 3: Comprehension Building
Partially aligns/supports

The ITSS materials partially align with this recommendation of the IES Practice Guide. The intervention demonstrates strength in teaching students a routine for determining the gist of a short section of text. Teachers will need to supplement to build students’ world and word knowledge so they can make sense of the text and to teach students to monitor their comprehension as they read.

Recommendation 4: Practice with Stretch Texts
Partially aligns/supports

The ITSS materials partially align with this recommendation of the IES Practice Guide.  To provide students with opportunities consistent with the implementation steps suggested for this recommendation of the IES Practice Guide, teachers will need to supplement materials for all steps.  

Culturally and Linguistically Sustaining Practices

Criterion 1: Teacher Guidance
Does not align/support

The ITSS materials were not found to support the enactment of this culturally and linguistically sustaining practice.

Criterion 2: Cultural Competence and Sociopolitical Consciousness
Does not align/support

The ITSS materials were not found to support the enactment of this culturally sustaining practice.

Criterion 3: Supporting Multilingual and Bidialectal Learners
Partially aligns/supports

The ITSS materials were found to partially support the enactment of this linguistically sustaining practice. Teachers would need to consult and/or supplement significantly with additional resources to fully enact this practice.