Program Description
Amira is a personal artificial intelligent tutor program. It provides every student with an always available, infinitely patient, and highly-trained personal reading tutor. Amira provides teachers with a tool that can be deployed in the classroom or as homework. Amira also generates reports that provide a granular, real-time view of student progress. Amira assesses and tutors students and recommends appropriately challenging stories, listens as a student reads aloud, and intervenes when helpful. Amira assesses oral reading fluency and analyzes errors to pinpoint strengths and weaknesses. Every time a student and Amira read together, Amira generates diagnostic reports that teachers and parents can use to understand student progress.
Program Outcomes
The impact of Amira (formerly The Reading Tutor) has been evaluated in both randomized and quasi-experimental studies. In a student-randomized trial in two suburban schools with a majority White population, 178 students in grades 1–4 who struggled with reading were assigned to either Sustained Silent Reading or Amira for 20–25 minutes daily over seven months. Students who used Amira scored significantly higher than controls on the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test Total Reading Composite (effect size = +0.64).
A more recent matched comparison study in a large urban Texas district examined 15,424 kindergarten and first grade students during the 2024–25 school year. Students were matched on baseline DIBELS scores and demographics. Results showed statistically significant positive effects, with Amira students outperforming matched controls by an effect size of +0.26 in kindergarten and +0.06 in first grade on end-of-year DIBELS.
Taken together, these studies provide consistent evidence of positive impacts on early reading outcomes, and qualify Amira for a Moderate rating.
Staffing Requirements
No special qualifications or certification are required to implement Amira.
Professional Development/Training
Teachers typically have 2 hours of in-person or remote training, which includes an overview of Amira Assessment and Amira Practice and details about logging in and access to the various reports. Then there is typically a follow-up 1 hour “data deep-dive” training after teachers and students have used Amira a few times to walk through reports and explore ways to use the data to guide instruction.
Technology
Amira is a browser-based program that works on Chromebooks, PCs, Macs, iPads, and tablets without the need for special software. A current version of Chrome, Edge, Safari (required on iPads), or Firefox is recommended. Devices should have at least 4 GB of RAM and a working microphone; headphones with a mic are encouraged in noisier classrooms. A standard school or home internet plan is usually sufficient, though stronger bandwidth improves performance when many students are online at once. Amira’s AI is trained on millions of student voice samples across diverse accents and dialects, giving it a robust ability to accurately recognize and assess oral reading even in varied classroom settings. Amira integrates with district systems through Single Sign-On (Clever, ClassLink, Google, SAML) and supports automated rostering via SIS/LMS. Amira operates as a closed, secure system that never accesses the open internet; all student interactions remain within the platform, which is fully compliant with COPPA, FERPA, and CIPA.
Amira has a library of resources for families, teachers, or school/system leaders available here.