Giving Compass' Take:

• Tara García Mathewson explains how Magic Ladder, a free reading-support software, helps teach difficult English spelling. 

• Language can be key to the success of refugees in new countries, how can funders help connect tools like this with those who need them most? 

• Learn about the power of language apps in the hands of refugees. 

The problem really started with the creation of written English. The language has 44 sounds but only 26 letters. That means some letters have to pull double duty, representing multiple sounds. Then there are groups of letters that together make sounds completely unlike the individual letters. To confuse matters further, a single sound can be represented by multiple different combinations of letters – like the common sound in “laughter,” “phone,” and “father,” for example.

Learning to read and write in English is much harder than it is in a language like Haitian Creole, for example, which has just one sound per letter. But David Boulton, who spent part of his career in Silicon Valley, thinks technology can solve that problem. Boulton runs Learning Stewards, a nonprofit that features a free reading-support program called Magic Ladder.

When students read something on a computer and come across an unfamiliar word, they can click on it. Through Magic Ladder, one click opens a pop-up with the word broken up into its syllables. Another click helps readers sound out the word. A user can also click for a definition of the word, its synonyms, its linguistic roots and a translation.

Read the full article about Magic Ladder by Tara García Mathewson at The Hechinger Report.