SARAkids: Smart AI Reading Assistant for Kids

Supporting reading acquisition and development through Artificial Intelligence
Learning how to read is crucial for any further educational development. Therefore, reading is one of the most important factors in achieving educational equity. However, children often encounter challenges early on that might hinder this process. Developmental differences can be as hindering as external limitations, such as insufficient family support.
SARAkids aims to support young learners in their personal journey of learning how to read, using eye-tracking to identify individual struggles in comprehension, phonetic decoding, or other reading skills. It then provides personalized, AI-generated interventions (visual, auditory, or multimodal) to address these challenges adaptively. The tool is designed to complement, not replace, existing teaching practice and pedagogical methods. It supports an independent practice opportunity, helping children reconnect with learning and develop guided reading strategies.
SARAkids aims to offer scalable, adaptive support, making reading practice more effective and personalized for each child. The project was made possible through the support of Dr. Christoph Kuhmann, LL.M.
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SARA: Smart AI Reading Assistant
Description

Enhancing Understanding through Vision and Artificial Intelligence
SARA was developed to improve the comprehensibility of written content, increase learning efficiency, and provide support in multiple languages. It uses artificial intelligence and eye-tracking to identify areas in the text where comprehension might be difficult. By analyzing eye movements, SARA can determine which parts of the text students focus on the most. This information can indicate potential comprehension challenges and is used to offer tailored support. The type of assistance, whether providing additional context or rephrasing sentences, is determined based on the identified difficulties. Ultimately, this helps students improve their reading and comprehension skills.
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Papers
Enkeleda Thaqi, Mohamed Omar Mantawy, Enkelejda Kasneci. 2024. SARA: Smart AI Reading Assistant for Reading Comprehension. Proceedings of the 2024 Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications (ETRA 2024) https://doi.org/10.1145/3649902.3655661


