Microsoft made Reading Coach, their AI-powered application for tailored reading practice, free for Microsoft account holders today.
Reading Coach is in preview on the web this morning, with a Windows version following. Microsoft promises Reading Coach integration with Canva in late spring.
It’s commonly known that reading is crucial to a student’s academic performance; studies show that proficient readers are four times more likely to complete high school and acquire better employment, Microsoft argues in a blog post. “With the latest AI technology, we can give learners personalized, engaging, and transformative reading experiences.” 
Reading Coach expands on Reading Progress, a plug-in for Teams for Education that helps instructors improve student reading fluency. Microsoft released Reading Coach in 2022 as part of Teams for Education and Immersive Reader, their cross-platform language and reading comprehension assistance tool, inspired by Reading Progress’ popularity.
A reading coach helps students identify their hardest words and provides resources for independent practice. Text-to-speech, syllable-breaking, and visual dictionaries are options for educators.
Teachers may examine a student’s reading coach’s work, including which words they practiced, how many times, and which tools they utilized. Students might also receive this knowledge from teachers.
Reading Coach now has a “choose your own story” feature powered by the Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service that allows students to use AI to create their own stories.
Reading Coach’s “choose your own story” lets learners choose a character, place, and reading level and have AI construct material based on their hardest words, like the Amazon Echo Show’s AI-generated story tool. Microsoft moderates tale content for “quality, safety, and age appropriateness.” The reading coach corrects pronunciation, listens to the student read, and awards medals to access new characters and scenarios.
ReadWorks, a reading comprehension library, offers selected texts for students who don’t write.
Microsoft says “Reading Coach intrinsically motivates learners to continue advancing their skills in several ways.” “With impactful, safe, and responsible AI use, we believe personalized learning at scale is possible.”
Importantly, not all instructors share Microsoft’s optimistic perspective of AI for reading comprehension. Experts claim there is no surefire technique for measuring understanding, which includes kids’ knowledge, vocabulary, and word sounding and pronunciation. Students can accidentally alter assessments by pushing the wrong button. Or individuals may become tired of a tool’s work and disengage, resulting in a poor score.
Still, instructors don’t think Reading Coach hurts. According to an EdWeek Research Center poll, 44% of instructors believe adaptive technology reliably assesses kids’ reading levels better than non-adaptive software or pen-and-paper approaches.
