Specifically, this study evaluated the effects of the Helping Early Literacy with Practice Strategies. The primary purpose of this study was to examine the impact of a reading fluency intervention program when used by parents in the home during the summer months. Parent tutoring offers potential as a means for assisting the large percentage of students who need to improve their reading skills. One theme throughout our discussion is human- centered design that minimizes users' cognitive load, which effectively frees up mental resources for performing better while also remaining more attuned to the world around them.

We also summarize recent research findings from our lab comparing the performance characteristics of different educational interfaces that were based on user-centered design principles. In this paper, we illustrate different user-centered design principles and specific strategies, as well as their advantages and the manner in which they enhance users' performance. Human- centered design advocates that a more promising and enduring approach is to model users' natural behavior to begin with so that interfaces can be designed that are more intuitive, easier to learn, and freer of performance errors. Historically, the development of computer systems has been primarily a technology-driven phenomenon, with technologists believing that 'users can adapt' to whatever they build. Understanding becomes relevant when high element interactivity material with a naturally high cognitive load must be learned. In addition, the concept of element interactivity can be used to explain not only why some material is difficult to learn but also, why it can be difficult to understand. Under conditions of low element interactivity, re-designing instruction to reduce extraneous cognitive load may have no appreciable consequences. It is suggested that extraneous cognitive load that interferes with learning only is a problem under conditions of high cognitive load caused by high element interactivity. In contrast, in different areas, if elements can be learned successively rather than simultaneously because they do not interact, intrinsic cognitive load will be low. If, as in some areas, interactions between many elements must be learned, then intrinsic cognitive load will be high. The elements of most schemas must be learned simultaneously because they interact and it is the interaction that is critical. Intrinsic cognitive load is characterized in terms of element interactivity. Intrinsic cognitive load in contrast, is constant for a given area because it is a basic component of the material. It is pointed out that cognitive load theory deals with learning and problem solving difficulty that is artificial in that it can be manipulated by instructional design. The consequences of cognitive load theory for the structuring of information in order to reduce difficulty by focusing cognitive activity on schema acquisition is briefly summarized. It is suggested that when considering intellectual activities, schema acquisition and automation are the primary mechanisms of learning. This paper is concerned with some of the factors that determine the difficulty of material that needs to be learned. This suggests that as game level difficulty increases, which requires a higher cognitive load of a student, students who used the digital scratchpad had higher game performance. Interestingly, the correlation increases as the game difficulty level increases. Our data analysis using person-correlation shows a significant positive relationship between digital scratchpad usage and game performance for all three game difficulty levels.

Game log data, which consisted of 1,440,000 actions, was collected from 418 students in kindergarten to grade 2. We examine whether a correlation exists between the amount of вЂњdigital scratchpad usageвЂќ and a studentвЂ™s вЂњgame performanceвЂќ. In this paper, we collected game log data from an educational game, called вЂњDouble digitвЂќ, which has a digital scratchpad as an assistive tool that can be used to reduce studentвЂ™s cognitive load. Using an assistive tool, such as a notepad, can reduce such extraneous cognitive while solving a problem, thereby improving a studentвЂ™s performance. An excessive cognitive load may reduce a studentвЂ™s problem-solving performance by preventing effective learning.

Digital scratchpad