Associate Professor Laura Tortorelli
Michigan State University is part of a $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences to enhance early literacy and responsible artificial intelligence use nationwide.
MSU Associate Professor Laura Tortorelli is one of the project’s co-principal investigators.
The five-year grant will establish a Center for Early Literacy and Responsible AI, headquartered at the University at Buffalo, or UB. The center will focus its efforts on improving “beginning reading skills of students, with an emphasis on students from underrepresented and underserved communities,” according to a UB press release. It will also develop a tool — the Artificial Intelligence Reading Enhancer, or AIRE — to “support K-2 students in independent reading by generating personalized text, providing real-time reading analysis and offering just-in-time literacy support.”
“We will bring artificial intelligence together with what we already know about literacy teaching and learning practices,” said Tortorelli, part of the MSU Department of Teacher Education.
Tortorelli, who will be part of the literacy team on the project, brings expertise on how young students learn to read and the instructional practices educators use. Her research has found that while teachers are open to using digital platforms to complement reading instruction and learning, often the tools aren’t detailed enough to meet the varied needs of learners, lack diversity, or the reading materials within the tools simply aren’t challenging enough for children.