Preferred Partner Highlight: Readorium
The Vision
My name is Harriet Isecke, and being an educator literally runs in my blood. In fact, most of my family members either were, or still are educators. I have been involved in public education for over 40 years as a teacher, literacy coach, curriculum director, consultant, and author. My expertise is in nonfiction literacy instruction.
Having worked mainly in inner-city areas, I became increasingly concerned about the ever-widening achievement gap. Too many students struggle to comprehend grade-appropriate text, especially in science. We live in a rapidly changing world, and we need to ensure that all of our children have the skills they need to become independent learners and thinkers. Instead of simply watering down curriculum for strugglers, we must find a way to help all students comprehend what they read.
Since I was unable find a product that married reading instruction with the understanding of deep science content, helping to solve this problem became my mission. I worked with a wonderful team to develop Readorium. This online, blended learning solution enables students at all skill levels to understand the same rich, grade-appropriate content.
The Product
How is this accomplished? Each standards-based Readorium chapter book delves deeply into a specific subject area, so students can gain true expertise from the text. Each book has a "human" mentor who provides personalized assistance. All text is written at 10-12 different readability levels. Both the text and the scaffolded supports automatically adapt to students' individual needs, based on their responses, as they read. Thus, all students, from the high fliers, to strugglers, to English Learners can comprehend the same rich, grade-appropriate information.
To make the program as engaging as possible, we asked students about the types of bells and whistles that would make them want to read the books. We gamified Readorium and added strategy raps, challenges, animations, and humorous videos. Since teachers are the most significant variable in any learning equation, they receive real-time reports on every aspect of their students' progress, and instructional materials to help them target instruction based on this data
We are proud to announce that Readorium won the 2016 National CODiE Award for Best Reading/English/Language Arts/Instructional Solution, was a 2016 ED Tech Digest Cool Tool Finalist, and received a Trendsetter Award for innovative content by the Software and Information Industry Association. Readorium is also recommended by the National Science Teachers Association. Readorium has been successfully used by thousands of students.
Readorium continues to keep up with the latest scientific findings and educational trends, and we add new content based on this research. Readorium also continually requests input from educators and students to ensure that their needs are met.
The Testimonial
We reached out to Ms. McGuire, a 7th grade teacher from New Jersey, and asked her about her experience using Readorium in the classroom.
How did you learn about Readorium? I learned about the Readorium program from a science teacher in my school who was piloting it with her students. I was immediately impressed by the structure and interface of the Readorium program, and I was excited to learn that Readorium is an intervention reading program that tailors instruction and reading experiences to meet the needs of diverse readers.
How do you utilize Readoirum in your classroom? What are the benefits? I was very fortunate to have a Readorium grant last year. I used the program in a literacy-based elective class (7th grade) to give kids a technology-enhanced, personally tailored, reading experience that supplemented the ongoing lessons and activities in class. I really love that the Readorium program offers nonfiction books and magazine articles, and that students are given choices about what to read. I used the weekly reports to monitor students' progress and reading time, and I was able to pinpoint specific areas of concern for individual students, as well as for the whole class. As a language arts teacher, I see the value in isolating specific reading skills (ex: identifying main idea) when offering students in-depth reading instruction and practice. Students were also encouraged to use the Readorium program outside of school in order to continue improving their reading skills. Incentives were given for students to reach specific goals on Readorium. The program was a definite success!
What would you say to another teacher who may be hesitant about trying a new #edtech product in their classroom? For a teacher who might feel apprehensive about trying an edtech program in the classroom, I would say that we as educators must be open to new ideas and possibilities. We have the responsibility to give our students a well-rounded educational experience, and strong educational technology programs, like Readorium, offer one way to engage many students simultaneously while automatically differentiating the content for a heterogeneous class. I was amazed by the results that I saw when my students used Readorium last year!
If you have any questions, email us at info@pledgecents.com.
