A better understanding of how children read and comprehend a short text and what makes this process occasionally difficult, slow and inefficient is key to improving people’s education level, professional qualification and social cohesion.

Readlet intends to use and validate portable ICT technology and cloud computing to collect, time-align, integrate and analyse large streams of multimodal child reading data, elicited through ecological protocols at school.

Online databases of automatically classified cross-sectional and longitudinal data, accurate statistical modelling and computer simulations of developmental trends of reading literacy will help education professionals and clinical specialists to better assess the level of reading skills reached by the child and decide which intervention programmes and measures are most appropriate.

While information technology cannot and should not supplant the role and professional judgement of teachers and therapists, the project will provide portable tools, models and data for a timely screening and an efficient management of reading difficulties of early grade pupils.