Intelligent Reading Improvement System for Fundamental and Transversal Skills Development

The project iRead4Skills has as main objectives:

• to assess and reduce reading skills gaps in low literacy adults for the development of fundamental and transversal skills by i) establishing and monitoring the relation between improvement in literacy skills and improvement in other fundamental skills (such as numeracy or ICT) and transversal skills (such as technical skills, communication skills, team-working skills, foreign language skills, customer handling skills, problem solving skills, learning skills and planning and organization skills) as well as motivation, citizenship and well-being; ii) providing an intelligent reading system that evaluates texts complexity and suggests appropriate readings according to the user literacy level. The system would also be used to assist trainers and text producers to create or adapt texts with the appropriate level of complexity with regard to their target readers.

• to support the adoption and diffusion of innovation in the way low literacy adults acquire and sustain transversal and durable skills, matching the always evolving needs of the job market, by developing and putting to work an open access system, available for both trainers and trainees, that allows for advanced digitally-enabled training and skills development.

Reading skills are fundamental to acquire technical and scientific knowledge, either in formal education and training contexts, as Adult Learning (AL), either in practical and empirical working contexts, as when companies provide written specific information and/or instructions to their workers. People with low literacy skills are less able to acquire and sustain transversal and durable skills needed to stay apace with the changing job market and to lead meaningful and complete lives.