IIT Bombay's Revolutionary App Transforms Student Reading Assessments

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay has introduced TARA, a mobile application that automatically measures students' oral reading fluency. Utilizing speech processing and machine learning, the app evaluates reading levels in English and Hindi. Adopted by Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, TARA offers real-time analytics on reading skills across extensive student cohorts.

IIT Bombay's latest innovation, the Teacher's Assistant for Reading Assessment (TARA), is set to reshape how student reading fluency is measured. Leveraging cutting-edge speech processing and machine learning, the app autonomously assesses oral reading skills, providing insights into students' reading proficiency in English and Hindi.

The app has garnered attention from Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS), which has implemented TARA in its extensive network of schools for grades 3 through 8. Covering over 7 lakh students in 1,200 schools across India, this marks the largest deployment of such technology in the country.

Funded by the Tata Centre of Technology and Design, the Abdul Kalam Technology Innovation Fellowship, and the school education community, TARA uses expert-annotated readings to deliver human-expert consistent evaluations of oral reading fluency. Dr. Shailaja Menon of Tata Trusts highlights the app's capacity to provide real-time, meaningful learning data at individual and cohort levels.

(With inputs from agencies.)