|
Hispanic Heritage Month, celebrated from September 15th to October 15th, is a time to honor the cultures and influence of Hispanic and Latinx individuals in the United States. Educators can play a pivotal role in promoting diversity and inclusivity among students, and ReadWorks offers valuable ways to integrate Hispanic Heritage Month into classrooms. Aligned with the principles of Hispanic Heritage Month, ReadWorks' core values seamlessly reinforce the importance of diversity and inclusion. With a focus on Impact and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, Community, Quality, and an Empathetic Mindset, ReadWorks is dedicated to providing resources to effectively blend Hispanic Heritage Month into a learning environment. Educators can leverage ReadWorks texts in the following ways: 1. Assign from ReadWorks' wide array of content exploring Hispanic cultures to spark discussions that foster cultural understanding.  Chilli Peppers 2. Search the library to find passages that spotlight influential Hispanic figures who have made significant societal contributions.  Roberto Clemente 3. Initiate post-reading reflective discussions about the histories of Hispanic countries, cultures, and communities.  El Castillo Pyramid You can find all of our resources related to Hispanic Heritage Month for all grade levels and topics using the search tool on our website. We hope you can celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with ReadWorks this September! Written by: Heidi Alkoutami, Marketing and Technology Intern
2 Comments
Ignite student learning and spark even more curiosity in the classroom! We're excited to introduce an additional free resource through a new partnership with a fellow learning resource News-O-Matic. Through this new partnership, we will prepare a selection of knowledge-building texts that align with News-O-Matic's news articles to teach students 21st-century skills such as critical thinking, media literacy, and global awareness. In line with ReadWorks’ mission and the scientific study of reading, this routine will build background knowledge and enhance vocabulary to improve reading comprehension. Each week, we will provide, free through our partnership, a hand-selected and timely News-O-Matic article with levels for grades 2-8. We will also curate nonfiction ReadWorks passages to help students build background knowledge and vocabulary to support the comprehension of the news article. Teachers can choose to print or digitally assign the related ReadWorks' texts to support explorations and discussions of the news article. The Book of Knowledge tool is also a great tool to continue the post-reading reflection process. Check out the first paired articles and texts about the President’s Visit to Maui after Fires. Download our easy one-page guide for linking reading, writing, and speaking! Written by:
Melissa Calder, Director of Marketing and Engagement
Explore Our Newest ContentSeen on Social Media
Missed an issue of our newsletter? See an archive of all our supporter updates here.
 The month of August means back-to-school time. It also means that it’s time for Week 1 in our topical Scope & Sequence set, and it’s a popular one – Animals! Across all grades, animal passages are the most popular among ReadWorks students. We have more than 1000 texts on or about animals within the ReadWorks library. The subjects of the texts range from a bird’s connection to life science to animals around the world. The texts were written for K-12 reading levels and include multiple Lexiles. Many were conceived by our expert content learning partner The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF). NFWF is dedicated to sustaining, restoring and enhancing the nation’s fish, wildlife, plants and habitats for current and future generations. With guidance from ReadWorks on classroom and reading accessibility, NFWF tapped into the deep knowledge of their scientists to create original content for Article-A-Day learning routines. Explore NFWF’s passages:    During this busy back-to-school season, save time by assigning engaging daily reading with just a few clicks. Log on to ReadWorks, click Scope & Sequences, click on the month of August and choose the grade level, then you will see Week 1: Animals for each grade! Students who are interested in the topic read and comprehend at a higher level, and so many students of all ages are interested and familiar with animals! Written by:
Melissa Calder, Director of Marketing and Engagement As teachers face the critical challenge of helping students become successful, joyful readers, they need resources that they know will work. However, “there is a stunning lack of research and evidence to support the efficacy of” the 11K+ edtech tools available (source). ReadWorks is different. Research is at our core. Our ever-evolving, 100% free products are built on the scientific study of reading to ensure students can steadily improve and expand their background knowledge and vocabularies in support of their reading comprehension—helping them become the confident readers they deserve to be. We are honored to have earned Digital Promise's Research-Based Design and Learner Variability product certifications for our careful, research-driven product development on behalf of the millions of students and teachers who use our site each year. Once our resources are launched, we continuously study their impact in multidimensional research studies, led by our internal research team and in partnership with top reading researchers. Because of our robust research agenda, ReadWorks is one of only 26 of the 100 most-used edtech tools in classrooms that meet Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requirements, according to a report from LearnPlatform by Instructure. ReadWorks currently meets ESSA Tier 3 evidence requirements. In a 2022 study, researchers at NYU Stern School of Business found that students who complete ReadWorks multiple-choice questions progress over time, implying that students’ reading performance benefits from regularly doing ReadWorks question sets. This study also corroborated two earlier Digital Promise studies (in 2020 and 2019) by finding that differentiation within ReadWorks digital assignments helps students confidently and successfully tackle challenging reading. The impact of differentiation on student assignment open rate was even larger for the high-poverty group than that for the low-poverty group, implying the potential benefits of differentiation, especially for more disadvantaged groups. In 2023, we launched a multi-year research plan that will deepen our investigation of ReadWorks’ impact on teacher practice and student outcomes, while continuing our mission of advancing the broader field of reading comprehension research through our innovative work. To continue examining the effectiveness of our high-quality passages designed to improve students’ background knowledge and vocabulary, our research team is studying our flagship product, Article-A-Day. A 2023 spring pilot with over 150 students in eight North Carolina classrooms found promising evidence that Article-A-Day can augment background knowledge and vocabulary. Our research team will conduct a follow-up study this year and will also use the pilot data to refine our new background knowledge assessments. We will share our assessment work with the broader field to help advance research in this critical aspect of reading comprehension, as background knowledge, a key part of reading success, can be challenging to measure accurately and reliably. We could not deepen our research efforts without the support of our school and district partners. Thank you to the teachers and students who support research in the classroom. You can find additional case-studies that have proven impact and have influenced our design decisions. Contact engagement@readworks.org if you are interested in partnering or learning more about a research study. Written by:
Susanne Nobles, Ph.D., Chief Academic Officer I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream! Celebrate National Ice Cream Month with our K-6 reading passages about ice cream, popsicles, and other tasty treats. Reading about ice cream is almost as sweet as tasting it, we think.  1st Grade: I Scream for Ice Cream! Meet Nancy Johnson, the woman who cracked the code for quick-freezing ice cream. Troy's Treat Troy’s generosity earns him a tasty treat! 2nd Grade: Who Invented the Popsicle? Read the story of Frank Epperson, the man who accidentally invented popsicles. The Best Argentinian Cookies Spark up your sweet tooth with sweet, buttery alfajores. 3rd Grade What Is Wagashi? Learn about the seasonal Japanese candies that are as beautiful as they are delicious. Abuela's Bake Sale Dish Abuela’s special budín de pan saves the day! 5th Grade: A Food Discovery Simone’s father helps her embrace their heritage with a special cultural recipe. 6th Grade: The Inside Scoop Beloved ice cream truck driver Guy Elefantis shares his sweet daily routine. Written by:
Samuel Siegel, Marketing & Development Specialist Announcing an Entire School Year of Free Webinars for New and Returning ReadWorks Teachers7/11/2023 We’re determined to make the 2023-2024 school year the best one yet. Want to join us? This year, we’re introducing a suite of new resources and strengthening the ones you know and love. To ensure success in your classrooms, we’ve paired these resources with a full school year of free live webinars! Each 30-minute webinar is packed with reading instruction strategies that can make a difference in your classroom. Receive expert guidance from our team of former teachers turned PD professionals. Invest in teaching success by signing up for a free webinar today. See you there! 2023 – 2024 Live Webinar Schedule
Written by:
Samuel Siegel, Marketing & Development Specialist ReadWorks is excited to add even more free curricular support for early readers! It is vital to give readers the opportunity to build background knowledge while practicing the letter-sound code that brings reading to life. Enter the new decodables on ReadWorks – a series of short, nonfiction texts designed to enhance curriculum and teacher instruction for early readers. Developed with expert writers and early reading thought leaders, these new decodables enable teachers to harness even more of the high-quality tools and sequences that ReadWorks offers. “The team at ReadWorks is dedicated to the mission of offering free reading comprehension tools for teachers, and it was essential for us to develop specific tools for early readers. The popularity of the fiction decodables aligned to ReadWorks nonfiction articles that we offer in partnership with Whole Phonics provided us a launching pad into writing nonfiction decodables that work in step with our Article-A-Day scope and sequence. Early literacy is the cornerstone of educational success, and we are excited about the positive impact that these new decodables can have on children's reading development," Susanne Nobles, Chief Academic Officer, ReadWorks Here are the powerful features and benefits of the new ReadWorks decodables and how they can be used to revolutionize early literacy education.
2. The Power of Nonfiction for Early Readers Often, knowledge and vocabulary development are sacrificed for early readers because the texts they are reading are solely focused on word recognition. Teachers can deliberately support their students’ knowledge-building by pairing ReadWorks content-rich, listening-level passages with ReadWorks free decodables on the same topic. "We’ve all heard the adage that children first learn to read, and then they read to learn. Yet decades of research show that this is a false dichotomy ... From the very beginning, children can build knowledge of the natural and social world through read-alouds ... [and] build knowledge through texts that they are learning to read themselves" (The Scientific Advisory Committee, Knowledge Matters Campaign). Source  3. Cultivating Reading Comprehension Proficiency These new decodables are particularly unique because they give beginning readers the opportunity to build background knowledge while practicing mastering the code. ReadWorks created decodables that work with our Article-A-Day scope and sequence to help students build language comprehension while they also become proficient with word-level reading. ReadWorks has been honored to have expertise on this project from Dr. Julia Lindsey, creator and author of Beyond Decodables, author of the book Reading Above the Fray, and former elementary teacher turned early literacy consultant. She says, “I’m thrilled for educators to use the new high-quality decodable texts available for free from ReadWorks. ReadWorks’ decodables are nonfiction, informational texts created via the same rigorous vetting process as their other resources. By combining decodability and content (linked to Article-a-Day), these texts have the potential to simultaneously support children’s foundational skills and knowledge development — an all-around win!” ReadWorks continues to pave the way for accessible, engaging, and transformative free resources that improve reading comprehension to reach every grade level, school, and district. Decodables for first grade and kindergarten are available now, and second grade texts are being written. Teachers can find decodables within our Article-A-Day Scope & Sequence on ReadWorks. Be sure to register for our upcoming webinar Fostering Joy in Early Readers, How to Use New decodables on ReadWorks on August 15th. Written by:
Melissa Calder, Director of Marketing and Engagement Susanne Nobles, Chief Academic Officer  “What’s your best digital reading format?” Do you prefer Arial font with 15 point size and wide character spacing, or Helvetica font with 20 point size and traditional spacing?” Have you ever even thought about which digital format works best for you while reading on a device? Maybe you already adjust your screen away from the default text or you have used the pinch and zoom feature to adjust text size. The ability to quickly and easily change your font size and spacing can result in instantaneous improvement in reading speed and comprehension. Many of these adjustable features and tools are not yet available for young students. ReadWorks is leading the charge to provide access to digital format options for K-12 students on all of our high-quality passages. Tailoring education to individual needs is not new– some students need glasses and some need to sit closer to the front of the room in order to learn and perform better. Differentiating to meet students’ needs looks different, however, in the age of digital learning, finding solutions is a deep focus at ReadWorks. “We feel privileged to be part of the research team investigating how the visual features of typography affect reading fluency and comprehension by having a variety of digital formats implemented on the ReadWorks platform. Much of this work has already been implemented for college and adult students, and now we are able to be leaders for K-12 students,” said ReadWorks Chief Academic Officer, Susanne Nobles, Ph.D. So, how do we know that reading format can help students with reading comprehension? In a first-of-its-kind research study conducted by ReadWorks, Chapman University, The Royal Danish Academy, and Readability Matters, students showed an average increase of 20% in comprehension based on a change to the reading format, which can translate to an increase in up to two letter-grades for students. And for those most impacted by text format, the percentages gained were even higher. Source We are continuing to dig into these exciting early findings. As part of a research study with the University of Oregon, Readability Matters and the iDEAL Institute at Loyola Marymount University, students on ReadWorks will use a new assessment tool to determine their best reading format. Student’s best-performing reading format will be provided to them while on ReadWorks without any additional burden for teachers to manage. The outcomes of this research can significantly inform Universal Design for Learning (UDL) guidelines and best practices for how edtech organizations create and deliver tech-enabled resources and tools. With a vast educator base, ReadWorks is in a uniquely advantageous position to quickly roll-out new features to support millions of students and help lift the barrier to high-quality, research-based tools and resources that improve reading comprehension. Digital text formats are an important new avenue to continue to differentiate and personalize learning needs. Rather than using tools that work better for many students, we can implement tools that work best for each student. Written by:
Melissa Calder, Director of Marketing and Engagement Susanne Nobles, Ph.D., Chief Academic Officer July 4, 2023, is likely to be a day full of fireworks, barbecues, and red, white, and blue. But what really happened on July 4, 1776? Take your readers on a journey through the Revolutionary War and the ratification of the Declaration of Independence with ReadWorks texts! Learn about another significant day for American independence, Juneteenth, commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans on June 19, 1865. This Independence Day, read all about the history and celebration of American independence.
Written by:
Samuel Siegel, Marketing & Development Specialist |
