Iowa launches AI-powered reading tutor program

DES MOINES — The Iowa Department of Education announced last week that some elementary schools will use an artificial intelligence reading assistant to help with literacy tutoring programs.

The department made a $3 million investment into Amira (EPS Learning) for the use of a program called EPS Reading Assistant, an online literacy tutor that uses AI technology. Iowa public and non-public elementary schools will be able to use the service at no cost through summer 2025, according to the department news release.

“Reading unlocks a lifetime of potential, and the Department’s new investment in statewide personalized reading tutoring further advances our shared commitment to strengthening early literacy instruction,” McKenzie Snow, the education department director, said in a statement. “This work builds upon our comprehensive advancements in early literacy, spanning world-class state content standards, statewide educator professional learning, evidence-based summer reading programs, and Personalized Reading Plans for students in need of support.”

The program uses voice recognition technology to follow along as a child reads out loud, providing corrective feedback and assessments when the student struggles through a digital avatar named Amira. According to the service’s website, the program is designed around the “Science of Reading” approach to literary education — a method that emphasizes the teaching of phonics and word comprehension when students are learning to read.

Gov. Kim Reynolds and state education experts, including staff with the Iowa Reading Research Center, have said that this teaching strategy will help improve the state’s child literacy rates, pointing to reading scores increasing in states like Mississippi following the implementation of “science of reading” methods.

In May, Reynolds signed a measure into law that set new early literacy standards for teachers, as well as adding requirements for how schools and families address a student not meeting reading proficiency standards. These requirements include creating a personalized assistance plan for the child until he or she is able to reach grade-level reading proficiency, and notifying parents and guardians of students in kindergarten through sixth grade that they can request their child repeat a grade if the students are not meeting the literacy benchmarks.

Reynolds said the law was a “to make literacy a priority in every Iowa classroom and for every Iowa student.”

The AI-backed tutor program is being funded through the state education department’s portion from the federal American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, part of a pandemic measure providing states with additional funding. The federal fund allocated more than $774 million to Iowa in 2021.

In addition to the new AI-backed programming available, the fund money is also going toward summer reading grants, awarded to 41 elementary schools in 29 districts for efforts to address summer learning loss and close achievement gaps. The elementary schools that won grants have all “affirmed their commitment to including the personalized reading tutor as part of their evidence-based programming,” according to the news release.

This article first appeared in the Iowa Capital Dispatch.