Deliver engaging reading & writing lessons that leverage powerful learning routines

We've done the heavy lifting of designing effective lessons, so you can focus on building connections with students.

What makes our literacy instruction effective?

The effectiveness of our literacy instruction is built upon several key components. First, each lesson identifies clear learning objectives and essential questions that ensure purposeful and focused learning. Second, we introduce carefully crafted prompts at the beginning of a lesson to engage students in purpose-driven reading. Third, our pedagogically sound instruction leverages student-centered activities and predictable routines, fostering academic conversations and collaboration from start to finish.

Let Us Show You How Our Lessons Are Different...

The Power Is in the Pedagogy

Our classroom-ready lessons are pedagogically sound and research-based from start to finish. Students are challenged every step of the way as they develop essential literacy skills. Every lesson, every teacher move, and every routine is intentionally designed to ignite thinking and build independent readers, thinkers, and writers.

With our Quality Instruction, you can...

deliver fun and interactive literacy lessons.
easily support the diverse learners in the classroom and create opportunities to express new knowledge and understanding in different ways.
increase success and participation with predictable learning routines.
confidently implement grade-level literacy instruction with high levels of success.
motivate students with flexible grouping and student-centered activities.

How it works:

Each lesson provides a step-by-step teacher guide that includes practical ways to explicitly teach reading and writing skills, differentiate instruction, and engage students in various discussions about the text. Easily navigate the various steps in the lesson by opening and closing sections of the lesson. Each step in the lesson offers ways to gamify the instruction, support it, and "take it up a notch!"

Differentiation for All Students

Our lessons allow educators to address individual strengths and challenges, promoting deeper engagement and understanding. By accommodating various skill levels and interests, students are empowered to develop their literacy skills more effectively and confidently.

With our Differentiation for All Students, you can...

support vocabulary and language development with various wordplay activities and individually constructed dictionaries.
increase access for various student groups with text summaries, leveled texts, and text-to-speech.
confidently deliver designated and integrated language standards with our English Language Connections.
enrich learning with our Take it up a notch" opportunities that challenge students to go beyond the standards.
promote academic language development with sentence frames that guide students to think in complex ways.
easily facilitate pair and small group discussions about text with embedded Pause and Discuss prompts.

How it works:

Strategies for effective differentiation are embedded throughout the teacher-driven lesson. For example, teachers can quickly level a text for students who need access to an easier version or summary of the text. Providing an easier version of a text can increase access for students learning English and for students who have specific learning needs. Additionally, teachers can use our dynamic teacher guide to turn on or off discussion questions. When turned on, we automatically chunk the text and ask a question after each grouping of paragraphs. This all happens with a simple click of a button.

Spiraled Instruction

Predictable literacy routines establish a structured framework for continuous skill development. By revisiting learning strategies and essential literacy skills regularly, students solidify their understanding and build confidence in their abilities.

With our Adaptive, Recursive Literacy Routines, you can...

create confidence in students as they rehearse predictable routines that help them develop new knowledge.
encourage metacognitive awareness, enabling students to reflect on their learning progress.
provide embedded support for all learners.
elevate the multiple intelligences in the classroom (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, interpersonal, and linguistic-verbal).
establish effective routines for analyzing prompts, vocabulary knowledge, comprehension reading routines, and writing and speaking routines.

How it works:

Routine-based learning is powerful. In these learning environments, students can focus on new learning instead of putting critical energy into how to learn. We leverage a set of interactive literacy routines that help students dig into texts and use reading, writing, and speaking as tools for learning. Throughout the year, students will practice the same routine multiple times, promoting mastery and independence.

Transferable Skills

Our teacher-driven lessons focus on explicitly teaching essential literacy skills and standards that ready students for college and careers. The grade-level reading, speaking, writing, and collaborative skills taught in our lessons can transfer to other classes and lead to future academic success.

With our Transferable Skills, you can...

vertically align reading, speaking, and writing standards to ensure students are building critical skills at each grade level.
strengthen students' ability to breakdown complex texts and write about them in sophisticated ways.
develop analytical and critical thinking skills essential for text-dependent writing tasks.
rehearse and master a research-based reading and writing process that can be used for various academic tasks.

How it works:

When students read with us, they have the opportunity to hone critical reading skills applicable across all subjects. By mastering college and career readiness standards and skills, students develop into strategic readers with enhanced rhetorical flexibility.

Our Impactful Instructional Practices

High Expectations

Set high expectations for reading and writing and support every step in the process and improve engagement, growth, and confidence.

Cognitive Learning

Teach students how to use a literacy strategy independently and strategically by teaching them how to use it, when to use it, and why to use it.

Spiraled Instruction

Shift the responsibility for learning to students, rehearse academic skills, and gradually increase complexity so students develop critical thinking and problem solving skills.

Let Us Show You How Our Teacher-Driven Lessons Work...

Step-by-Step Teacher Guides

How it works for the Classroom Teacher:

When you are viewing a lesson, you will see the step-by-step instructions on the right side of the article. The instructions are conveniently placed next to the text. The lesson is broken into three main components: Before, During, and After reading activities. Teacher moves are explicitly stated and strategies for increasing engagement and access for all students are embedded throughout the lesson.

How it works for the Student:

As the classroom teacher guides students through the lesson, students have access to the text and activity handouts.

Routine-based Learning

How it works for the Classroom Teacher:

Our predictable learning routines offer clear and explicit instructions so you and your students feel confident during each step in the process. You can easily respond to diverse learning styles and needs by turning on and off scaffolds, projecting academic language frames, and utilizing additional instructional components designed to enhance each unique routine.

How it works for the Student:

Students receive clear and explicit instructions for each routine. The routines spiral over the year as more and more lessons are used, so students become familiar with all the routines and master the ones that are rehearsed most often.

Thoughtful Vocabulary Instruction

How it works for the Classroom Teacher:

Each lesson provides various vocabulary activities for you to choose from. You can teach the critical concepts that have been identified for the lesson, teach in-text vocabulary, facilitate skits, and ask students to complete vocabulary practice activities.

How it works for the Student:

Students have access to vocabulary words and handouts. They also have an opportunity to support their own learning by identifying unfamiliar words in the text they are reading. Our language dictionary defines each unfamiliar word in context and provides additional information to help students understand not only the meaning of the word but also how the word is used.

Assign Single Lessons or Units

How it works for the Classroom Teacher:

Teachers have the flexibility to assign single lessons or themed units.

Assigning a lesson to a class is a snap! Teachers can preview the standards and outcomes for the lesson, review the skills that will be taught, and go through the pre-reading, during reading, and post reading activities. If a teacher wants to teach the lesson, all they have to do is click "Assign to Class."

How it works for the Student:

Once assigned, students will see the lesson in their Assignments list. They can click on the lesson and view the text and begin scanning for unfamiliar words. Each routine in our lessons is text-dependent, so students will be asked to read and reread their text multiple times for multiple purposes.

Our Lessons Have 8 Key Teacher Moves!

Our standards-based lessons build students into confident and capable readers and communicators.

Lesson Essentials

Each lesson provides a clear text summary, an essential question (EQ), Lexile reading level, and options for customizing support like turning on embedded discussion questions and text-leveling.

Get Ready to Read

Each lesson begins with a prompt that students analyze. The prompt explains what students should be focused on while reading; and it can be used for text-dependent writing practice and instruction.

Build Vocabulary

There are numerous opportunities to build vocabulary in each lesson. During this step in the process, students study critical concepts and "play" with various grade-level vocabulary words from the text.

Make Predictions

Complete this step before or after our vocabulary activities. Students study the image at the top of the article, read the first and last paragraphs, and make a prediction about the text's topic and structure

Comprehension

Once students mark their prompts, explore vocabulary, and make predictions, they are ready to start a reading comprehsion routine. Our comprehension routines are highly structured and engaging.

Analysis

Most of our lessons have analytical routines called Reading for Deeper Meaning. These routines ask students to go beyond what an author says and look closely at what an author does in a text.

Review

There are opportunities in each lesson to review key components. There are vocabulary review activities, comprehension questions that we recommend doing in groups, and summary activites.

Reading to Write

Each lesson offers post-reading activities that teach specific writing skills like integrating sources and a text-dependent writing assignment that follows a standards-based process...that we grade!

Get Started Today!

Predictable literacy routines that differentiate learning for all students

Standards-based reading and writing skills that transfer across subject areas

Clear instructions for both the classroom teacher and the students

Engaging reading and writing tasks that promote critical and analytical thinking