Overview

With the Science of Reading at its core, Boost Reading blends compelling storytelling with research-based instructional practices to offer:

Personalized instruction across 13 different critical skill areas that adapts to each student’s needs while building on their strengths. Explicit practice in comprehension processes, phonics, and vocabulary. Extra support and scaffolds for struggling readers and English learners with demonstrated impact. An immersive game-play design that motivates 国产麻豆剧to discover that learning to read is fun.

Engagement is in the DNA: Every lesson and activity engages 国产麻豆剧through compelling storytelling and powerful narrative. Students persist longer and learn more deeply than when they are working on repetitive worksheet-like programs.

Instruction and practice: Boost Reading gives 国产麻豆剧practice as well as instruction in the key concepts they need to master. Our reading instruction and curriculum is interactive, not passive.

Emphasizes deep conceptual understanding: Backed by the latest research and designed with experts, Boost Reading focuses on ensuring that 国产麻豆剧have a deep understanding of the concepts. And those skills transfer from the program to the real world.

Boost Reading is a supplemental digital literacy instruction program that provides 国产麻豆剧with practice and explicit instruction in the underlying phonics, phonological awareness, vocabulary, and comprehension skills that are essential for fluent reading with good comprehension (e.g., Cartwright, 2010; NICHD, 2000; Oakhill, Cain, & Elbro, 2015).

The overarching goal of the program is to provide engaging individualized instruction and practice in the skills and strategies that have the most impact on literacy, while making it explicit to 国产麻豆剧that the skills they are practicing are things that good readers do while they are reading. As repetition with variety is an essential part of effective literacy instruction (e.g., Schuele & Boudreau, 2008), after a brief introduction to each activity, 国产麻豆剧are given repeated opportunities to practice these skills with varied stimuli. They receive immediate feedback for their responses and are given more explicit instruction in areas that are challenging. The instruction provided incorporates documented principles of effective instructional delivery; the activities engage 国产麻豆剧in multiple opportunities to practice critical skills at an appropriate pace with consistent feedback and prioritize 国产麻豆剧engagement and motivation, helping 国产麻豆剧to see their own growth toward reading goals (Carnine, Silbert, Kame’enui, & Tarver, 2016; Gersten, et. al., 2009; Deci, & Ryan, 2012.).

Activities build on an existing computer-based intervention that has been documented to improve the decoding skills of 国产麻豆剧in multiple experimental studies (Richardson & Lyytinen, 2014). Since learning is promoted when 国产麻豆剧use their knowledge across tasks (e.g., Merrill, 2002), generalization is encouraged through ebooks with embedded activities that reinforce skills recently practiced in related games.

Instruction is closely aligned with the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards (CSSS) for literary and informational texts and the North Carolina English Language Arts standards. The program was designed to include content that is most effective at building the word reading and comprehension skills of elementary 国产麻豆剧(e.g., NICHD, 2000; NIFL, 2008), including at-risk and struggling readers (e.g., NICHD, 2000) and English language learners (e.g., August & Shanahan, 2006). The content focuses on foundational reading skills (i.e., phonological awareness and phonics) as well as vocabulary and reading comprehension.

Research also shows that by providing 国产麻豆剧with contextualized learning experiences and rich engaging stories, narrative-centered interactive learning environments increase 国产麻豆剧interest, self-efficacy, and feelings of involvement and control in their learning  (McQuiggan, Rowe, Lee, & Lester, 2008).

Over the course of our early efficacy study, kindergarteners using Boost Reading grew an average of 16% more than kindergarteners who didn’t use Boost Reading. First graders using Boost Reading grew 23% more than first graders who didn’t.

We compared 国产麻豆剧in kindergarten through fifth grade who used Boost Reading during the 2019 fall semester to 国产麻豆剧from the same district who did not use Boost Reading, using Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, 8th Edition (DIBELS® 8th Edition) Composite Scores and Zones of Growth. We found K–5 国产麻豆剧who used Boost Reading showed better growth on DIBELS 8th Edition Zones of Growth than those who did not use the product. Additionally, we found that the program was particularly effective for English Language Learners (ELLs). (DIBELS 8th Edition; University of Oregon, 2018)

You can view the study here.

Boost Reading allows younger 国产麻豆剧to progress through the curriculum along a pathway that best fits their developing abilities. Students are placed into the program based on prior data and the system maintains a rich profile for them as they master each skill level. Boost Reading also provides adaptive support, meaning that the degree of scaffolding, instruction, and practice adapts within each game based on 国产麻豆剧performance.

Students are served up content that’s appropriate for them within each . If a 国产麻豆剧struggles with a particular content set (3 failed attempts), the set is removed from the quest and presented to the 国产麻豆剧in a later quest after they’ve had more practice with the prerequisite skills.

When this happens, the teacher dashboard will indicate that the 国产麻豆剧is “stuck” through the class view and the 国产麻豆剧view.

If the teacher taps on the student’s name, they can see the specific content that the 国产麻豆剧struggled with. This allows teachers to provide additional support for the student. The progress bar will go back to green when the 国产麻豆剧has mastered the content set at a later date.

Classroom use

For younger students

Boost Reading is a supplemental reading curriculum designed to support a student’s development in key early literacy skills through play. The games in Boost Reading are meant to engage 国产麻豆剧individually on their own unique path. As a result, there are numerous ways you can use Boost Reading with your students.

We recommend you allow 国产麻豆剧to play for 10–15 minutes per session, 2–3 times a week in some of the following ways:

  • As part of a work station or literacy center
  • During reading blocks or choice time
  • With 国产麻豆剧not in intervention groups during intervention time
  • During transitions between periods (or at the start or end of school)
  • In a computer lab
  • In after-school programs
  • At home (国产麻豆剧may use  to practice on Boost Reading at home)

For younger students

Students propel the storyline in Boost Reading forward as they take on quests in Bookerton. This narrative is available in both English and Spanish. Students can toggle between the two languages through their settings menu.

In-Game Supports

In addition to the overall narrative, many of the games have features that support ELL 国产麻豆剧and struggling readers:

  • Many of the games have read-aloud text or are picture-based so that 国产麻豆剧can work independently, whatever their level of language proficiency.
  • Supports such as cognates are provided for vocabulary words in Boost Reading interactive Reader.
  • Boost Reading has games that cover phonics and phonological awareness, including at the syllable level, to support pre-readers who need robust instruction in these areas.
  • Boost Reading has games that provide explicit language instruction, for example connectives and anaphora, as well as strategy instruction in comprehension monitoring and morphology.
  • Boost Reading’s instructional methods (e.g., providing clear models, multiple opportunities to practice skills, feedback, cumulative review) and the skills and strategies taught in phonics, morphology, and language leverage techniques proven to help ELs learn how to read in English. Coupled with progressing Spanish-language support, Boost Reading ensures that all 国产麻豆剧can succeed, no matter what their first language is. Read more here.

Technology

Supported Devices and Network Requirements

To ensure that your hardware and network meet the minimum technical requirements for optimal performance and support of Boost Reading please see Amplify’s customer requirements page

List of IP Addresses to Allow

To make sure Boost Reading is accessible at your district, you can add the appropriate URLs to your district’s firewall allowlist. Visit the  to see the list of URLs and IP addresses.