 “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
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Whether you are a teacher or a parent, these tips will prepare your reader for a successful school year! 1. Turn on the Student Library 📖 Helps students improve reading comprehension and foster a love for reading By turning on the Student Library, you grant unlimited student access to our online passages all summer long 24 hours, seven days a week! 2. Explore our curated summer reading packets ☀️ Provide a range of preparatory reading resources to enhance your reader’s learning We offer a large selection of reading packets that you can print for free! These packets include nonfiction passages, fiction passages, and question sets. Our curated collection of passages engages students and prepares them for the next academic year. 3. Purchase our Summer of ReadWorks Workbook for readers entering grades 2-4 🏫 Plans high-interest readings that stimulate learning and reinforce new knowledge. This illustrated bound workbook provides eight weeks of high-interest pre-planned content to engage your reader all summer. This unique workbook strategically introduces diverse topics and supplements reading comprehension with a physical Book of Knowledge. 4. Supplement novels with Book Studies 📚 Builds the knowledge needed to critically engage with novels and explore their themes. If you have a novel assigned for summer reading, use Book Studies to deepen your reader’s learning! Book Studies offer expert-curated fiction and nonfiction passages formulated to deepen your reader’s understanding of the novel. 5. Differentiate with content and digital supports 🔎 Can be shaped to your reader’s needs to enhance understanding and optimize learning. Our differentiated content and digital supports adapt to your reader’s needs and interests. Illustrated eBooks, accessible StepReads, relevant Article-A-Day collections for English Language Learners, and more are available. We also offer audio capabilities, multilingual Article-A-Day instructions, and reading tools that help readers navigate challenging texts. First time using ReadWorks at home? We’ve built a guide just for you! Check out our ReadWorks for Families page for tutorials, tips, and resources. Written by:
Samuel Siegel, Marketing & Development Specialist ReadWorks is proud to be featured as a New and Noteworthy application on the Clever Library! We only became a more accessible resource to educators through Clever a few months ago and we’re already feeling the love. You can now use our research-based learning supplements and expansive library with ease and single sign-on access.  Through Clever, ReadWorks has garnered nearly 50,000 downloads from the 2022-2023 school year alone. ReadWorks seamlessly integrates with Clever, and our standout features have drawn in a dedicated community of Clever educators:  Filtering
Question Sets
Interactive Vocabulary Activities
 Research-based Learning
 Differentiation Tools
We look forward to continuing to support educators and students with Clever! Join the 50,000 teachers who have used ReadWorks on Clever today. Written by:
Samuel Siegel, Marketing & Development Specialist Explore just a few of our new features to get a head start on the school year: 1. Use our interactive vocabulary activities and the vocabulary widget to create a playful learning experience, exploring sound-spelling connections before, during, and after reading a text.  2. Assign Middle School or Elementary School Book Studies to integrate ReadWorks into your daily ELA instruction. Each Book Study includes two knowledge sets and/or theme sets.  3. Explore our free alignments to more easily incorporate ReadWorks materials in your curriculum, including our new NGSS alignment.  4. Find ReadWorks in the Clever library! You can add ReadWorks to your library and Clever class pages.  ReadWorks also integrates with Google Classroom. Help us become one of Google Classroom’s new Add-Ons by emailing your admin or by giving feedback within Classroom to request ReadWorks be included. 5. Join one of our upcoming free webinars or watch on-demand to learn more about using ReadWorks to support your students' reading comprehension.  Written by:
Becca Vaughn, Director of Development Susanne Nobles, Ph.D. Senior Director of Teaching & Learning Educators have always understood the importance of getting to know each student personally. Remote learning has brought an increased focus to ensuring that these personal connections continue to happen even when teachers and students cannot be together physically every day. ReadWorks’ Reading Mindset Snapshot, a new digital feature on our site, offers a free and simple solution to getting to know students more deeply as individual readers. This survey-style inventory tracks students’ joy in reading and the topics they are interested in.  The results of the Reading Mindset Snapshot show teachers what their students are interested in to help them find even more enjoyment in their reading. Research has shown that students read more when they are motivated by interest and choice in the topic (Guthrie, Wigfield, & VonSecker, 2000). Reading more, in turn, builds students' background knowledge and vocabulary (Cullinan, 2000; Juel, 1990). Research has shown for decades that gaps in comprehension aren’t gaps in skills, but rather gaps in knowledge. What students know about the topic of a text influences how well they comprehend that text. (Wexler, 2019; Kaefer, Neuman, & Pinkham, 2015; Recht & Leslie, 1988). Additionally, knowledge increases fluency, which can enhance code-breaking instruction and learning (Hirsch, 2003). The Reading Mindset Snapshot is a critical piece of the path to helping students develop into successful and joyful readers. Over 45,000 educators used the Reading Mindset Snapshot to learn about their students this past school year. These 313,403 anonymized student responses reveal important things about readers of all ages across the United States. First, students overwhelmingly enjoy learning from reading. Our data shows that this is their favorite kind of reading: from kindergarteners to seniors, more than 80% of students who took the Reading Mindset Snapshot said that learning new things from reading made them happy.  This is important because it shows that students not only benefit from gaining new knowledge from reading, but they also enjoy such learning. ReadWorks can help educators tap into their students’ love of reading to learn to build students’ critical funds of background knowledge and vocabulary. Article-A-Day is a great place to start -- learn all about this easy, 10-minute routine here! We also learned that the Reading Mindset Snapshot successfully captures the reality of how reading fits into students’ lives -- that is, all of the findings were not 100% rosy. For example, the responses from middle school students (grades 6-8) show that their interest in all reading topics declines except for reading about inventions, technology, and design. What we know about adolescence provides a helpful background for these results: adolescence is a time of great change, causing seismic shifts in interests, while at the same time is when kids often get their first mobile phones and social media accounts. While we would have celebrated if the results showed that reading about a wide range of topics remained a top interest for adolescents, we instead celebrate that educators can trust that they will learn honest and real things about their students with the Reading Mindset Snapshot. And to not end our look at student interests on a negative note, this past year’s responses show that high school students (grades 9-12) regain interest in every topic area! Also, and interestingly, every grade, from kindergarteners to seniors, have three of the same top five interest areas (albeit in different rank order): Animals & their Habitats, Sports & Hobbies, and Making & Enjoying Art & Music.  Starting in Fall 2020, the Reading Mindset Snapshot can be given regularly throughout the year so that teachers can monitor changes in students’ feelings about and interests in reading to see the impact of their instruction. The Reading Mindset Snapshot also has the following features to support all students, from pre-fluent readers to English Language Learners to students with special needs:
The team at ReadWorks is excited to provide a simple and effective way for educators to understand a little more about each of their students as readers in this critical time as they work to understand where to begin instruction again for the new school year. Give the Reading Mindset Snapshot a try—we bet you will learn something new about your students! Works Cited Cullinan, B. E. (2000). Independent reading and school achievement. School Library Media Research, 3(3), 1-24. Guthrie, J. T., Wigfield, A., & VonSecker, C. (2000). Effects of integrated instruction on motivation and strategy use in reading. Journal of Educational Psychology, 92(2), 331-341. Hirsch, E.D., Jr. (Summer, 2003). Reading comprehension requires knowledge—of words and the world. American Educator 27 (1), 10-22, 28-29, 44. Juel, C. (1990). Effects of reading group assignment on reading development in first and second grade. Journal of Reading Behavior, 22(3), 233-254. Kaefer, T., Neuman, S. B., & Pinkham, A. M. (2015). Pre-existing background knowledge influences socioeconomic differences in preschoolers’ word learning and comprehension. Reading Psychology, 36(3), 203-231. Recht, D. R., & Leslie, L. (1988). Effect of prior knowledge on good and poor readers' memory of text. Journal of Educational Psychology, 80(1), 16-20. Wexler, N. (2019). The knowledge gap: The hidden cause of America’s broken education system—and how to fix it. Avery: New York. |
