This post is based on an interview with Gamble Montessori Elementary intervention specialist Lauren Holt, conducted by Read Naturally marketing associate Madeline Waters.

Lauren Holt is an intervention specialist who works with fourth through sixth graders at Gamble Montessori Elementary School. When she started working at the school, she hoped to be able to use Read Live as she had in a previous position; the school did have an account, but there weren't enough licenses for Lauren's students. So, Lauren decided to start a GoFundMe to raise money in order to provide her students with access to Read Live.

Lauren wanted to use Read Live for several reasons, including the reporting features, the option for students to practice independently at home, and the numerous built-in opportunities to support comprehension.

Comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading, and many factors have to come together for students to reach it—including fluency. Lauren has seen significant growth in her students' oral reading fluency since starting them in Read Live. "Not only do I see [growth] in the Read Live data, but it's transferring into their Acadience data," she says. One example stands out—one of her students recently met her IEP goal for oral reading fluency thanks to her hard work in Read Live. "She was reading 60 words at a third-grade level and she's now reading 70 words at fifth-grade level," Lauren shares.

Read Live also includes numerous opportunities for students to apply reading comprehension strategies, including reviewing key words, writing a prediction, determining the main idea, retelling the story, and more. Lauren explains, "I really like to look at the retell of the stories because something that I'm working on a lot with my kids is comprehension strategies—really looking at text structures and figuring out how we could use a text structure to help us form a summary."

The quiz questions at the end of each story provide another chance to reinforce comprehension. "When I do the pass activities at the end, I go through one-on-one every kid's answers…even if it's correct, you are correct because you looked back in your text and you did this. But if it's not correct, we're going to talk about why that's not correct," she says. It's important to Lauren to provide timely, targeted feedback to each student. She reports having a full caseload of 16 students but explains that "[Read Live] does allow me to really be individualized for each of them."

With a wide range of story topics, Read Live gives students a chance to build knowledge while they read—and the fact that the students can choose which story to read helps keep them invested. "They obviously love that they get to choose what story they get to read…giving kids options is a great tool," Lauren says. Many of her students have read and particularly enjoyed the story about the durian fruit. "One kid was just so amazed by it. He was like, 'I wonder…I've never heard of this fruit before. How many fruits have I never heard of?' And like, you know, goes off on a tangent about it."

With Read Live, Lauren's students are reading more fluently and better understanding what they read. Perhaps most rewarding of all, though, is that they're feeling this growth in themselves. "One hundred percent, their confidence has grown. I mean, I see kids now wanting to read in class that never wanted to before. I have kids participating more that didn't really participate much." Recently, the ESL teacher told Lauren that one of their shared students even took a book home to read with her dad. Lauren explains, "She enjoys reading now because she knows how to read."

This progress is exactly why Lauren wants to keep Read Live available to her students. "They're doing great. So that's why we're going to keep doing this. I'm going to keep raising money for Read Live for as long as I can."

Thank you to Lauren for taking the time to share how Read Live has made a positive difference in her students' lives. We know there are so many wonderful teachers out there, just like Lauren, working tirelessly to ensure their students know how to read with comprehension—and have brighter futures because of it. We're truly honored when Read Live can be part of these stories. If you have a story to share, please reach out to Madeline Waters at mwaters@readnaturally.com. It's a joy to connect with teachers like you and to spread the word about the important work you're doing.