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Q: What is Summary Street®?
A: Summary Street is a reading comprehension and writing instruction tool.
Students summarize reading passages in their own words and Summary Street
automatically compares the student's writing to the reading passage.
Summary Street compares the student's writing to each of the sections of
the text and provides immediate feedback about the content coverage of the
summary on a section-by-section basis. Additional feedback includes
information on copying from the text, spelling, redundancy, and
irrelevant sentences.
Q: How does Summary Street work?
A: Summary Street uses the Knowledge Analysis Technologies™ (KAT)
engine, a
patented technology based on over twenty years of research and development.
It assesses the total content of a summary as well as the correlation
between the summary content and that of the original reading passage.
Summary Street compares the
student's entire summary to each section of the assigned reading and
returns feedback indicating how well the information in each section has
been covered by the student's summary.
Q: What is the KAT™ engine?
A: The KAT engine evaluates the meaning of text by examining whole passages.
The KAT engine is based on Pearson's unique
implementation of Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), an approach that infers
semantic similarity of words and passages by analyzing large bodies of
relevant text. LSA can then understand the meaning of text in much the same
way as a human reader.
Q: Does Summary Street use keywords in its evaluation?
A: A common misconception is that Summary Street scores by recognizing
keywords. It does not. If two or more different terms accurately describe
a concept, Summary Street will recognize either or both and score them
equally as well. For example, Summary Street measures
"Understanding is very important when you read something you want
to know about"
as very similar in meaning to
"Comprehending's essential"
even though there are no literal words in common. Keyword based similarity
would find nothing in common between these two sentences.
Q: What research has been conducted on Summary
Street?
A: Summary Street has been demonstrated to significantly improve student
writing skills. The summaries of students who used Summary Street have been
judged to be significantly superior in blind scoring by teachers than those
of students who used a standard word processing program. Students who used
Summary Street also received higher reading and writing scores on the
Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP) test.
For more information, please see the white paper
Building Student Summarization, Writing and Reading Comprehension Skills
With Guided Practice and Automated Feedback available on the
Research page at
http://www.summarystreet.com.
Q: What are the benefits of using Summary Street?
A: Summary Street gives students the opportunity to practice their
writing. The only way to learn to write is to practice with
informative feedback. The same goes for reading; the two are inseparable.
Learn to read and you learn to write, learn to write and you learn to read.
Summary Street provides the opportunity for students to practice both of
these valuable skills.
Summary Street is time efficient allowing teachers to
assign many more reading and summarizing assignments to students without
additional grading time. However, successful use requires an initial
investment. Students need time to read, identify the main ideas, plan their
writing and perhaps execute a draft before entering it into Summary Street.
Additionally, you may need to schedule access to the computer room or
reserve a laptop cart for your classroom, if available.
Summary Street helps you focus your teaching. By
observing students and using the Teacher Reports you can discover both
individual and class strengths and weaknesses to help guide teaching.
Summary Street is flexible and easy to use. Teacher tools
allow teachers to adjust the class roster, make assignments, set scoring
thresholds, and manage and evaluate student progress easily.
Summary Street tutors students to improve subject
knowledge, as well as reading comprehension
and writing skills by providing detailed feedback on content.
Summary Street allows students to tackle more difficult reading
assignments by boosting their understanding and performance
through automated evaluation and feedback.
Q: Are there different versions of Summary Street?
A: Yes, we have developed a custom version of Summary Street that aligns
with California Prentice Hall Science textbooks for grades 6 through
8 and a version that aligns with Scott Foresman Science textbooks for
grades 4 through 6.
Q: How many reading passages are available?
What topics or subject areas are covered?
A: Currently, we have over 100 reading passages available as part of
Summary Street. These reading passages cover subject areas ranging from
language arts to history to science and social studies. In addition,
Summary Street contains selected reading passages from Prentice Hall's
Science Explorer and World Studies textbooks.
Q: For what grade levels is Summary Street appropriate?
A: Summary Street includes readings that are appropriate for students in
grades 5-12.
Q: How long does it take to score a summary?
A: Most summaries are scored within a few seconds. Keep in mind that a
slow or busy Internet connection may delay the response.
Q: What feedback do students receive?
A: Students receive feedback on their coverage of each section of the
reading. Students also receive feedback on spelling, copying from the text,
and irrelevant and redundant sentences, as well as on the length of their
summary. Feedback is displayed in a graphical report that motivates
students to continue to improve their summaries.
An example of student feedback is available at
http://www.summarystreet.com.
Q: Does the length of a summary affect its score?
A: A summary will not be considered passing if it is either longer than
the maximum word count set by a teacher or if the summary is too short.
Q: Are students required to type their summaries
directly into Summary Street?
A: Students may type their summaries directly into Summary Street if they
choose; however, many students choose to compose their summaries in a
word-processing
program and then copy and paste them into the Summary Street interface.
Q: What are the technical requirements for using
Summary Street?
A: Minimum System Requirements:
Windows
- Windows 2000, XP
- 128 MB RAM (minimum), 512 MB RAM (recommended)
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher, Netscape
Navigator 7.0 or higher
- Javascript enabled
Macintosh
- MAC OS 9.2, OS X
- 128 MB RAM (minimum), 512 MB RAM (recommended)
- Safari 1.3.2 or higher, Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.1 or higher*,
Netscape Navigator 7.0 or higher
- Javascript enabled
Monitor Resolution
- 800 x 600 (minimum), 1024 x 768 (recommended)
*Internet Explorer support on the Macintosh in student
interface only.
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