A New Kind of Graded Reader

Back in 2004, I talked about algorithms for optimal vocabulary ordering.

Then in 2006, I talked about using this and other techniques in teaching New Testament Greek (which I’ve resumed doing with this method, btw).

Earlier this year at BibleTech:2008 I briefly touched on my graded reader approach. It generated a lot of interest so I decided to record a separate presentation at home this weekend, explaining some of the ideas behind the graded reader.

After multiple failed attempts to upload it to Google Video, it’s now on YouTube and embedded below. Sound was recorded and mixed in Logic Pro and then synchronized with a presentation in Keynote and output as Quicktime.

Running time is just shy of 9 minutes.

UPDATE 2008-03-22: Now see Graded Reader Discussion and Code

originally published on jtauber.com

at the intersection of computing, linguistics, philology, and learning science

By day I’m an entrepreneur, web technologist and open-source developer but my academic background is in linguistics (along with some classics, comparative philology, and educational statistics) and my main avocation is working on text, annotations, analysis and software relating to historical languages with a particular interest in facilitating better learning.

While my focus has mostly been on Biblical Greek, much of the work is highly relevant to other Hellenistic Greek texts, other dialects of Ancient Greek and, indeed, texts in completely different languages as well.

All code written for this endeavour is open source and text and data is made available under a Creative Commons license to the extent allowed by the sources used.