Lost in Springdale: An Interactive Narrative for Adult Literacy Learners

This paper reports development of an interactive narrative to be added to the existing intelligent tutoring system, the Interactive Strategy Trainer for Active Reading and Thinking-2 (iSTART-2). The design of this module is specifically tailored for adult learners who read below functional literacy levels. Little research focuses on the educational needs of adult literacy learners, but available evidence indicates they require support for both lower-and higher-order reading skills. The interactive narrative provides varied practice opportunities supporting these skills and uses life-relevant texts which hold personal significance for adult readers. We describe the design and development of the interactive narrative, and preliminary results from a small pilot study indicating overall enjoyment of the narrative.