Abstract: A method and related system, computer program product and device for interactively tracking oral reading of text from a document includes recording audio for a sentence read by a user and determining when the user has reached the last word of the sentence. The method also includes providing visual feedback to the user reading on a sentence by sentence level to indicate a current location in the passage.

Abstract: Methods and related computer program products, systems, and devices for providing intelligent feedback to a user based on audio input associated with a user reading a passage are disclosed. The method can include assessing a level of fluency of a user's reading of the sequence of words using speech recognition technology to compare the audio input with an expected sequence of words and providing feedback to the user related to the level of fluency for a word.

Abstract: A computer based method and related system, computer program product and device includes receiving audio input associated with a user reading a sequence of words and determining an approximate amount of time corresponding to an absence of input associated with an assessed word, after receiving audio input associated with a preceding word in the sequence of words, or since the start of the audio buffer or file. The method can also include displaying a visual indication or generating an audio intervention based on the determined amount of time corresponding to an absence of input.

Abstract: Apparatus and method for improving the speed an accuracy of recognition of speech dialects, or speech tansferred via dissimilar channels is described. The invention provides multiple models tailored to specific segments or dialects, and/or speech channels, of the population. However, there is not a proportional increase in recognition time or computing power or computing resources needed. Probability density functions for the acoustic descriptors are provided which are shared among the various models. Since there is a common pool of probability density functions which are mapped or pointed to for the different acoustic descriptors for each different dialect or speech channel model, the memory requirements for the speech recognition apparatus and method are significantly reduced. Each model is comprised of triphonemes which are modelled by discrete probability distribution functions forming hidden Markov models or statistical word models.