Hollis Irvin learned to read last year. She’s a good reader, her mother, Tiffany Burks, says. Last year, when the pandemic forced schools to close temporarily and during the early days of remote learning that followed, Burks started to worry about her Grier Elementary second grader.

Hollis was starting to read words just to say them out loud — not trying to understand what the words and passages meant. Reading felt like a chore to Hollis, Burks said.

Then they found the Reading Checkup, a mobile application that families can use to work on literacy skills at home. The app takes kids through a quiz and, based on the results, suggests activities and games for them to do on their own or work on with their parents.

“She’s making the connection when it comes to the questions [about what she read], so she’s not just reading to read,” Burks said. “If I had a question regarding one of the passages she read, she can answer the question back. There’s been a lot of growth that I’ve seen.”

The Reading Checkup is available for free in Mecklenburg County as Read Charlotte, a community-wide reading initiative, is leading a free pilot of the app for its maker, Learning Ovations. While Read Charlotte is using it to help parents work with their children, the algorithm it uses was designed to help teachers in the classroom.

Munro Richardson, executive director of Read Charlotte, believes the app can help kids address unfinished learning and combat summer slide.

“When we think about what’s happening in this COVID environment and post-COVID, our kids are going to be all over the place,” Richardson said. “So the need to have this sort of precision medicine for literacy is greater than ever.”

Read the full article about repairing COVID-19 learning loss by Rupen Fofaria at The 74.