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We're thrilled to announce that our Read Naturally Live program has just taken a giant leap forward with two groundbreaking new features: Independent Placement and Data Mentor! Read Naturally Live now incorporates the latest speech recognition technology to allow students to place themselves in the Sequenced series of the program without teacher support. Students using Independent Placement will get started in Read Naturally Live with an appropriate level and goal faster than ever—and teachers will save hours of valuable time. Meanwhile, our new Data Mentor tool will analyze students' story data and make recommendations for placement adjustments to help ensure their level and goal are customized for success.

Comprehension gives the act of reading a purpose and opens the door to enjoyment of reading. Indeed, deriving meaning from text is why we bother reading at all! Yet comprehension can be a struggle for any student, but often it’s especially challenging for multilingual students. What can we do to set them up for success in Read Naturally Live and Read Naturally Live—Español?

​In my last post, I shared the many assessment mistakes I’ve made over the years. Blunders aside, I actually love spring assessments for one simple reason. The spring assessment gives me an opportunity to show my students the big picture and remind them that the best reward of all is taking ownership of their own progress. This is usually just a short conversation, but it’s one of the most important talks I will have with them.

​Is it really assessment season again? It feels like yesterday that I opened the lab at this new school, met my students, and screened them for reading difficulties using benchmark assessment. The winter assessment window seemed to arrive just a short time after that. And now it’s springtime already, and spring assessment window is almost here. It is time to prepare to assess the students yet again.

Read Naturally founder Candyce Ihnot likes to tell the story of a little boy who went from struggling to fluent using the Read Naturally program. When Candyce asked the boy how he got to be such a good reader, he said with a smirk, “It was nothing you did.” Rather than be offended by his brutal honesty, Candyce was delighted. The boy was taking due credit for his own accomplishment. He had come to understand that he’d possessed the tools for success all along. Having found the confidence and fortitude to master a huge challenge, he could now draw on those qualities again and again—without his teacher’s help.

Our teacher’s manuals are packed full of useful information about how to implement our programs effectively. They’re extraordinarily well researched and include hundreds of helpful suggestions. Have you read them recently? Cover to cover?

Don’t worry if the answer is no. We know how busy teachers are, and we want to make it easy on you to implement our programs with fidelity. That’s why we’ve created Fidelity Checklists. Download as many as you’d like—they’re free on our website!

Welcome to the second half of the school year! Are you ready to see your Read Naturally students crush their goals and accelerate their progress? As you know, they will improve most rapidly when they’re working in the sweet spot of challenging but not frustrating material. Thanks to the detailed graphs and reports in Read Naturally Live, finding this sweet spot is easier than ever. The Students-at-a-Glance report is a particularly useful tool for quickly identifying students who are not working with optimal levels or goals, or students who need extra support in key areas.

Churchill Elementary School in Cloquet, MN was named a 2022 Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education for "Exemplary Achievement Gap Closing." It was the only Elementary School in Minnesota to receive this recognition. Read Naturally Live is a big part of the school’s success.

Phonics skills are foundational to reading fluently and with comprehension. It's essential for reading teachers to determine which students need phonics support and what that support should look like. Read Naturally is here to support your students’ phonics needs every step of the way—from assessment, to intervention, to ongoing skill maintenance.

Over the past couple of years, we've made several enhancements to Read Live. We've added new programs, new content, and new features with the intention of helping as many students as possible succeed. All Read Live users have access to these enhancements at no additional cost. Are you aware of everything available to you as a Read Live user?

Make Your Student a STAR!

Read Naturally Star of the Month​Share your student’s success story—nominate him or her for our Star of the Month award. Win a Barnes & Noble gift card for the student and a Read Naturally gift certificate for your class!

pointer Submit a Star-of-the-Month entry

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