Reading Plus has a lot in store for the new school year! Educators and students alike will be pleased by the latest enhancements to the product. New product features include reporting on text Lexile® ranges and projected growth, increased choice and control for students, and resources to facilitate direct instruction.
A Proper Welcome Back
Students who return to Reading Plus after previously working in the program will be welcomed back with a message highlighting their accomplishments from the previous year (or years). In addition, returning students will find that all avatars and wallpapers earned last year are immediately available to use.
Address Skill Gaps with Skills Coach
Skills Coach and the full resource set of printable skills activities will be accessible directly from student and educator dashboards. These integrated resources support differentiation at the whole class, small group, and individual level to address the discrete comprehension skills that may be challenging for students to master.
When a student demonstrates difficulty with a particular comprehension subskill, he or she will automatically be assigned the appropriate offline remediation skill lessons and Skills Coach activities. Students will now have access to download these Offline Skill Practice Activities and Skills Coach videos directly from their Student Dashboard. Educators can control whether activities are automatically assigned.
Increase Student Choice and Motivation
Reading Plus helps students take an active role in their success by giving them choice and control over:
✔ Text presentation
✔ Genre (fiction and nonfiction)
✔ Reading rate
✔ Answer submission
Customizable Text Presentation: Students who have reached their grade-level rate goal will now have greater agency over how they read text in Reading Plus. Students may choose to read their text selections fully in the independent mode, fully in the Guided Window, or they may opt to read half of the selection in each format. This flexibility gives students the opportunity to choose the text presentation format that works best for them.
Filter Between Fiction and Nonfiction: Students will be able to find exactly which texts they want to read by filtering between fiction or nonfiction, in addition to the eight other high-interest categories in Reading Plus such as Get in the Game and How Things Work. Educators can also view if the texts students are reading are fiction or nonfiction.
Choose Your Own Rate: Students will use a new rate slider tool to adjust their guided reading rate (G-Rate) within individualized parameters at appropriate moments throughout instruction. This control increases motivation as students work toward their grade-level rate goals.
Is This Your Final Answer?: Students will now have the opportunity to finalize their answers by clicking a Submit button for every comprehension question. This extra step will provide students with control over when their answer is submitted for evaluation.
Scrollable Combo Bar: No more Halfway Markers! The Combo Bar is now scrollable. This makes it easier for students to see how many Combos are required for their current level. This improvement also eliminates the need for potentially confusing Halfway markers.
Redesigned Printable Awards: Reading awards have been redesigned to include the icons representing all Awards & Achievements the student earned while working toward completing the level.
More Rapid Acceleration to Independent Reading
Students will have more opportunities to practice independent reading in Reading Plus, without the scaffold of the Guided Window. Independent reading practice in Reading Plus will enable students to more rapidly transfer their improved silent reading skills to the reading activities they will encounter outside of the program.
Students who are working on building efficiency in Reading Plus will now have a chance to read independently in every lesson. Students will read the first three segments of a selection in the Guided Window, and the fourth segment will be presented in the independent (I-Rate) format.
Modified Comprehension Checks at Highest Levels
Students working on the very highest levels in Reading Plus—Levels L and M—will receive five comprehension questions instead of ten. Students working at these highest levels in Reading Plus have already developed essential comprehension skills and will be able to focus on reading longer fiction and nonfiction selections.
Now Even More Support for…
Students Reading on Lowest Levels
Reading Plus provides a new comprehension scaffold for students at the lowest reading levels to facilitate a gradual introduction to sustained memory and attention while reading. These scaffolds are designed to assist the sequencing of information processing. Students working at early-1st-grade through 2nd-grade readability levels will answer comprehension questions after each text segment, rather than responding to all questions after the entire selection.
Students Struggling with Comprehension
Students in Support Mode will receive additional scaffolds to facilitate comprehension. Students are placed in Support Mode when they consistently struggle to earn comprehension scores of 80% or higher. These expanded scaffolds include the option to read the entire text in the Guided Window, use additional ReReads, read at a slower rate, read on a lower level, read lessons the student previously read, and answer questions interspersed between segments.
New Features for Educators
Predict Student Improvement and Track Progress
The brand-new Projected Growth Report helps predict student growth over time, based on students’ progress in Reading Plus throughout the school year. The report enables educators to identify students who are on track to reach their end-of-year goals and inform decisions about how to support students who are at risk of not reaching their goals.
Text Lexile® Ranges: Facilitate Instruction and Measure Growth
Reading Plus benchmark reports provide Lexile ranges for each student. Lexile ranges help educators ensure that students are matched with instructional content at appropriate ranges of difficulty. Educators can refer to Lexile ranges provide an additional way to measure student growth.
We hope you have a safe and healthy back to school.
Contact us if there is anything we can do to support you.
