METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR READING EDUCATION

• US 20080140401A1
• Filed: 12/07/2007
• Published: 06/12/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/08/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SRI International, Inc.
• Original Assignee: SRI International, Inc.
• Inventors: ABRASH, VICTOR, BERCOW, DOUGLAS
• Granted Patent: US 8,226,416 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/251
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 19/06 Foreign languages with audible presentation of material to be studied G09B5/04
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 5/04 with audible presentation of the material to be studied sound recording or reproducing G11B

Abstract

The present invention is a method and apparatus for reading education. In one embodiment, a method for recognizing an utterance spoken by a reader, includes receiving text to be read by the reader, generating a grammar for speech recognition, in accordance with the text, receiving the utterance, interpreting the utterance in accordance with the grammar, and outputting feedback indicative of reader performance.

Claims

1. A computer readable medium containing an executable program for recognizing an utterance spoken by a reader, where the program performs the steps of:

receiving text comprising one or more words to be read by the reader;

generating a grammar for speech recognition, in accordance with the text;

receiving the utterance;

interpreting the utterance in accordance with the grammar; and

outputting feedback indicative of reader performance.

2. The computer readable medium of claim 1, further comprising:

displaying the text to the reader prior to receiving the utterance.

3. The computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein the displaying, the receiving of the utterance, and the interpreting are performed substantially simultaneously.

4. The computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein the displaying comprises:

formatting the text for display.

5. The computer readable medium of claim 4, wherein the text further comprises a formatting markup for guiding the formatting.

6. The computer readable medium of claim 4, wherein the formatting comprises:

calculating a position of at least one text format feature in accordance with at least one characteristic of a device on which the text is to be displayed.

7. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the text further comprises metadata comprising semantic data.

8. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the grammar allows the reader to, for each of the one or more words, do at least one of:

utter a next word, skip the next word, repeat a current word, utter an immediately preceding word, or utter a beginning of a current phrase of which the current word is a part.

9. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the grammar allows the reader to, for each of the one or more words that is a line-ending word, do at least one of:

utter a next line, repeat a current line, or utter an immediately preceding line.

10. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the feedback comprises at least partial results of the interpreting.

11. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the feedback comprises a score indicative of an accuracy of the utterance relative to the text.

12. The computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein the score comprises at least one of:

a number of words uttered by the reader in a given period of time, an amount of time taken by the reader to complete utterance of at least a portion of the text, a confidence score relating to a word uttered by the reader, a confidence score relating to a sentence uttered by the reader, a confidence score relating to a phrase uttered by the reader, or a percentage of words correctly uttered by the reader.

13. The computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein the score is at least one of:

a dialog act score, a duration score, a fluency score, a score related to a path taken through the grammar, or a pronunciation score.

14. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the feedback comprises at least one of:

poorly uttered portions of the text, correctly uttered portions of the text, skipped portion of the text, or repeated portions of the text.

15. The computer readable medium of claim 1, further comprising:

storing the feedback.

16. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the generating comprises:

generating transitions representing a correct utterance of the text; and

generating transitions representing at least one reading learner grammar feature.

17. The computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the at least one reading learner grammar feature comprises at least one of:

recognition of a mistake in directionality, recognition of a structural restart, or recognition of a jump-ahead.

18. The computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the transitions representing the correct utterance and the transitions representing the at least one reading learner feature are assigned probabilities.

19. The computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein at least one word in at least one of the correct utterance and the transitions representing the at least one reading learner feature is represented by a multi-word sub-grammar, the multi-word sub-grammar comprising:

the at least one word;

a reject grammar; and

a pause grammar.

20. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the text is received from local storage.

21. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the text is received from a remote computing device.

22. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein receiving text comprises:

performing optical character on a piece of printed text.

23. A method for recognizing an utterance spoken by a reader, the method comprising:

receiving text comprising one or more words to be read by the reader;

generating a grammar for speech recognition, in accordance with the text;

receiving the utterance;

interpreting the utterance in accordance with the grammar; and

outputting feedback indicative of reader performance.

24. Apparatus for recognizing an utterance spoken by a reader, the apparatus comprising:

means for receiving text comprising one or more words to be read by the reader;

means for generating a grammar for speech recognition, in accordance with the text;

means for receiving the utterance; and

means for interpreting the utterance in accordance with the grammar; and

means for outputting feedback indicative of reader performance.