PhonoBlocks

Project Overview

New technologies, such as tangibles and touch tablets with haptic feedback, may provide solutions for helping dyslexic children learn to read. Tangible letters that can be encoded with graphical or haptic information may enable dyslexic children to better decode them. For example, color coding, used by syntheses, may enable reliable 2D decoding. Haptic feedback can be used to encode letters with signature movements. Tablets combined with augmented reality and physical letters can also enable multimodal interaction and digital feedback. In this project we are exploring these strategies and others. The main research outcome is to determine if any of these strategies improve reading outcomes for dyslexic children, and how to scale and deploy solutions broadly to make them accessible to children at home and in schools.

Team

  • Dr. Alissa N. Antle: Project Lead
  • Dr. Maureen Hoskyn (previous advisor): Director, Centre for Research on Early Child Health and Education, Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University.
  • Dr. Alyssa Wise (previous advisor): Professor of Learning Sciences and Educational Technology, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, New York University.

Graduate Students

  • Min Fan, Post-Doctoral Fellow (now Assistant Professor, School of Animation and Digital Arts, Communication University of China)
  • Victor Cheung, Post-Doctoral Fellow (now Lecturer, Computer Science, SFU)
  • Shubhra Sarker, MSc. (now software developer, Fortinet)
  • Boxiao Gong, PhD student
  • Emily Cramer, MSc. (now developer, Google)
  • Ying Deng, MSc. (now user experience, Copperleaf)
  • Jianyu Fan, Ph.D. Candidate

Publications

Victor Cheung, Alissa N. Antle., Shuvhra Sarker, Min Fan and Jianyu Fan. 2020. Techniques for augmented-tangibles on mobile devices for early childhood learning. In Proceedings of Conference on Interaction Design for Children (IDC ’20). ACM Press, 589-601.

Min Fan and Alissa N. Antle. 2020. An English language learning study with rural Chinese children using an augmented reality app. In Proceedings of Conference on Interaction Design for Children (IDC ’20). ACM Press, 385-397.

Min Fan, Alissa N. Antle and Jill Warren. 2020. Augmented reality for early language learning: A systematic review of AR application design, instructional strategies, and evaluation outcomes. Journal of Educational Computing Research. [5-year impact factor 1.542]

Fan, Min, Sheng Jin, and Alissa N. Antle. 2018. Designing colour and materials in tangible reading products for foreign language learners of English. In Extended Abstracts of Proceedings of 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA’18). ACM Press,Paper No. LBW526.

Fan, Min, Alissa N. Antle, and Shubhra Sarker. 2018. From tangible to augmented: Designing a PhonoBlocks reading system using everyday technologies. In Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA’18). ACM, Paper No. LBW555.

Fan, Min, Alissa N. Antle, Maureen Hoskyn, Carman Neustaedter, and Emily S. Cramer. 2017. Why tangibility matters: A design case study of at-risk children learning to read and spell." In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’17). ACM Press, 1805-1816. [Honorable Mention Award, top 5%]

Min Fan. 2017. Exploring the Design of a Tangible System Supported for Learning to Read and Spell in At-Risk and EFL Children. Ph.D. Dissertation. Simon Fraser University, Surrey, Canada.

Fan, Min, Alissa N. Antle, and Emily S. Cramer. 2016. Exploring the design space of tangible systems supported for early reading acquisition in children with dyslexia. In Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI'16). ACM, 689-692.

Fan, Min, Alissa N. Antle, and Emily S. Cramer. 2016. Design rationale: Opportunities and recommendations for tangible reading systems for children. In Proceedings of the The 15th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC’16), ACM Press,101-112.

Cramer, Emily S., Alissa N. Antle, and Min Fan. 2016. The Code of Many Colours: Evaluating the Effects of a Dynamic Colour-Coding Scheme on Children's Spelling in a Tangible Software System. In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC ’16). ACM, 473-485.

Alissa N. Antle, Min Fan, and Emily S. Cramer. 2015. PhonoBlocks: A tangible system for supporting dyslexic children learning to read. In Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI’15). ACM, 533-538.

Emily Cramer. 2015. A Code of Many Colours: Rationale, Validation and Requirements for a Sound-Based Letter Colour-Code that Might Support Some Children with Dyslexia in Spelling Certain Words. Master's thesis. Simon Fraser University, Surrey, Canada.