Project Abstract

Following the success of Alphie?s Alley, the SFAF and the CSLP teamed up once again to create Team Alphie.

Team Alphie is a computer program designed to support small group tutoring for early literacy development. In teams of two to three students, this computer-based reading intervention program supports struggling readers in grades 1 - 5. The reading intervention program provided by Team Alphie is based on instruction and practice in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. However, because this program is targeted at struggling early readers, special emphasis is placed on developing their decoding and fluency skills.

The Team Alphie tutoring model enables one teacher to work with small teams, of two to three students, in a resource room. Following individual assessment, students are grouped based on their ability and practice needs. Once the teams are selected, the software creates an instructional plan based on the assessment results. This plan consists of sequenced computer activities appropriate to each team?s skill level.

Teams meet daily for 45 minutes, for a period of two weeks. Each day, they work on the interactive computer activities, which are also designed to facilitate turn taking, resource negotiation and mutual support. During Team Alphie activities team members take turns completing the activity and providing feedback on each other?s performance. Individual Accountability is encouraged, by assigning students different roles and requiring input from all team members to complete the activities. In addition, Team Alphie promotes positive interdependence by encouraging students in the teams to help each other, and having individual students contribute to team mastery.

Team Alphie?s strength as a powerful reading software is also due to its support of teachers in assessing the students, grouping them into teams, developing instructional plans, and delivering effective, fun instruction. The teacher plays an important role in this tutoring model. She rotates among the teams to provide support and modeling to the students. She also makes sure, that all the students in the class are making progress, by conducting quick individual assessments on a regular basis.

Tailored activities, frequent assessments and collaborative practices make Team Alphie a unique and effective tool in Early Literacy intervention.

Team Alphie is currently being used in more than 70 schools.

Team Alphie Demo movie

• The Team
  • Dr. Philip Abrami, Principal Investigator
  • Dr. Bette Chambers, Principal Investigator, SFAF
  • Dr. Robert Slavin, Principal Investigator, SFAF
  • Dr. Nancy Maddin, Principal Investigator, SFAF
  • Dr. Gia Deleveaux, Literacy Coordinator
• Design & Development
  • Catherine LeBel, Creative Director
  • Richard Gifford, Success for All Instructional Designer
  • Einat Idan, CSLP Instructional Designer
  • Sébastien Rainville, Programmer/Graphic Designer
  • Benoit Danis, Programmer/Graphic Designer
  • Mimi Zhou, Programmer/Graphic Designer/Support
  • Jeong-Jea Hwang, Programmer/Graphic Designer
  • Miao Song, Programmer/Graphic Designer
  • Melanie Perrett, Support
  • Melanie Perrett, Megan Durlak, Olivier Couture, Béatrice Chevez-Payes, Corinne Goss ? Testers / QA
• Special Acknowledgments
  • Geoffrey Hipps, Literacy Coordinator
  • Erin Comasky, Literacy Coordinator
  • Monica Lopez, Instructional Designer
  • Benoit Danis, Programmer/Graphic Designer
  • Dehua Zhang, Programmer/Graphic Designer
  • Jessica Landry, Sound Editing
  • Emily Gan, Sound Editing