Microsoft Teams to soon help students boost reading fluency

Microsoft is adding a new feature in its video meet and collaboration platform Teams that will help students improve their reading fluency. Called 'Reading Progress,' the feature works by allowing students to record themselves reading a passage of text.

The tool offers teachers the ability to assess accuracy rates, mispronunciations and more, a report said. With this feature, teachers will be able to measure the speed, accuracy, and expression of reading. Microsoft has been testing the feature with more than 350 teachers since October, and it's now set to roll this out as a free addition. "Teachers will see a full dashboard that shows the words per minute and accuracy rate, and they'll have the ability to jump to a specific word to hear a                                         pronounce it," the report noted.

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If teachers don't want the auto detection, they can simply turn this off and see a video of a student reading and then assess it manually. Driven by online work and learning amid the ongoing pandemic, Microsoft Teams now have 145 million daily active users globally, almost double the number a year ago. The company has added more than 300 features in Teams over the past year, including more than 100 new capabilities so far in 2021.