The Training Wheels for Literacy system has three main components:
- The PCUES Automation System
- The Authoring / Assignment Tool
- The Reader App / Browser Plug In
The PCUES Automation System
The PCUES Automation System is the intelligent backbone of Training Wheels for Literacy that transcodes human readable text into text-to-speech (machine) pronunciation code and subsequently to the PCUES code (which is embedded in the word as a mark-up language). The PCUES Automation System consists of:
- Master Exception List – list of manually cued words that bypass automation
- Online Pronunciation Dictionary (OPD) – open source or proprietary text-to-speech code library
- Rule Application Engine – transcodes (OPD) code into PCUE Code
- The PCUES program
The PCUES program automatically assigns and embeds PCUES Code (mark-up language) to words not found in the Master Exception List. After disambiguating heteronyms, it looks-up (OPD) the phonetic /pronunciation code of a word and transcodes the results into PCUES Code according to the Rule Application Engine. The program returns words with (invisible to humans) PCUES Code embedded in the word.
The Authoring / Assignment Tool (paper or file)
The Authoring / Assignment Tool allows content publishers / educators to personalize the application of PCUES to their content and to their learners. The application will be hosted on our website and could eventually be a plug-in for common word processors and publishing tools. The tool can open the content from common files or have it pasted into its workspace. It outputs PCUED texts that can be saved, copied, and pasted into popular word processing and publishing software, or directly printed.
The major components of the tool include:
Local Exception List – list of manually cued words that bypass both the Master Exception List and The PCUES Automation System
CUE Bias Setting – provides the ability to exaggerate the rendering of PCUES Font Styles (make letter name (LN) cues larger, change grayscale of (SL) cues, increase (SG cues) or decrease (CL cues) space between letters, increase or decrease the elevation of (AL-DL) cues, increase or decrease the morph of (AL-DUR) cues.
Reader Class Profile – a modifiable list of preferences that includes assignations of PCUES Font Styles to PCUE Code and selective disabling of individual PCUES
Individual Reader Profile – a modifiable list of preferences for individual students that includes selective enabling and disabling of individual PCUES (including various blends and affixes)
The Manual PCUES Assignment Editor – while the system evolves to include PCUES for every word in the English language there will be instances when the automation fails to cue a word correctly. The Manual PCUE assignment editor is a human interface dialogue that allows authors and educators to manually assign PCUES to the letters in a word. The resulting PCUED word is then added to the Local Exception List and submitted to the Training Wheels for Literacy Team which will either adjust the Rule Application Engine that controls the automation or add it to the Master Exception List (so that, one way or the other, the overall system learns).
The Reader App / Browser Plug-In
The Reader App and Browser Plug-In are analogous to ‘receivers’ or ‘players’ designed to display pre PCUED texts or to process any other texts into PCUED text via the PCUES Automation System.
The Reader App is designed to run on PCs, tablets, and smartphones. The Browser Plug-In is an extension that adds PCUES reader functionality to common web browsers and allows for the dynamic PCUEING of most web-page content. For an example of the Browser Plug-In ( still using an older automation logic and not yet correctly Pcueing) press the button below and scroll up to see its effects on the rendering of this very page.
Both the Reader App and Browser Plug-In provide users (and their teachers/parents) the ability to adjust the exaggeration of the cues as well as to enable or disable any particular cue.
Comments are closed.