Earlier today, we announced the launch of Reading Level Assessments and other enhancements to our digital library and literacy platform ReadingIQ®, helping match children 12 and under with the right books for their level and interests from nearly 10,000 expert-curated titles.
Developed by assessment experts here at Age of Learning, in cooperation with leading education and assessment research organization SRI International, Reading Level Assessments provide children age-appropriate passages and accompanying comprehension questions. The assessments, which take just minutes to complete, dynamically adjust their degree of difficulty in response to each child’s performance. ReadingIQ then recommends books at the appropriate level for the child. As children use ReadingIQ and improve their reading skills, the platform periodically prompts them to retake Reading Level Assessments to adjust their recommended level. Reading Level Assessments are currently available for ReadingIQ families and will be available for ReadingIQ teachers well before the upcoming school year.
ReadingIQ now includes three widely used book leveling systems, Accelerated Reader®, Lexile®, and Guided Reading, enabling teachers and parents to use their preferred system to adjust the reading level for each child.
We also announced the launch of ReadingIQ Show What You Know quizzes, a new listening and reading comprehension feature. Show What You Know quizzes provide engaging, voiced questions at the end of ReadingIQ books, helping pre-readers and readers build their comprehension and critical thinking skills.
According to recent nationwide surveys of more than 1,000 teachers and 1,000 parents, two-thirds of parents do not know their child’s reading level, making it difficult to provide appropriate reading materials. And teachers consistently report that children do not spend enough time reading outside of school. We developed ReadingIQ to address these challenges by providing children through 6thgrade with access to high-quality books that match their interests and reading abilities.
Age of Learning founder and CEO Doug Dohring summed up the benefits of these new ReadingIQ enhancements this way: “ReadingIQ is more than a collection of nearly 10,000 high-quality books–it’s a literacy platform with the goal of developing and advancing children’s reading skills. These latest enhancements help ensure young readers more easily find books at the appropriate reading level to engage, inspire, and delight them.”
Today we also announced the recent launch of PlayCrew™, a group consisting of a wide range of educators, parents, and children who test the company’s products and provide direct feedback to inform product design and development. Extensive in-person and remote research sessions with teachers and families helped shape many ReadingIQ capabilities, including the new Reading Level Assessments.
Available on computers, tablets, and smartphones, ReadingIQ offers nearly 10,000 expert-curated titles from leading publishers. To help strengthen the school-home connection around reading, Age of Learning provides the entire ReadingIQ platform at no cost to teachers, with the ability to assign books to their students. ReadingIQ is available at www.ReadingIQ.com and can be downloaded to smartphones and tablets through the Apple App Store or Google Play.