Effective Literacy Website Exploration #7: Readorium

 

Maricon Reyes

ED638-40 Fall Intersession 2020

Dr. M.Rivera

IRA Newsletter Weekly Project: Effective Literacy Website #7: Readorium

                Readorium (https://readorium.com/) is a literacy website for grades 3-8 offering a virtual science library with books and activities that builds nonfiction reading comprehension skills and growing science knowledge and understanding. This platform engages students in reading the same information, continually assessed, and automatically adjusts reading level and support systems as they progress. A wide variety of nonfiction science topics, feature images, key terms, and questions are included in the books. Each book has new concepts and vocabulary carefully explained with common examples. No prerequisite knowledge required as new chapters builds on preceding ones. Readorium may be used as a supplement in the classrooms, especially in elementary grades. It focuses on the learning standards, including the Common Core and the Next Generation Standards. This program may be assigned by the teacher to the entire class and discuss as a group or assigned to individual students. The robust tutorials and guidance will help students work through the materials at their own pace to understand topics and concepts. It is recommended to use Readorium at least for a minimum of one 40-minute period a week. In addition to using the regular classroom program for all students, Readorium may be used for struggling students needing intervention/basic skills classes during designated class time, after school, and summer school programs. For the gifted students, Readorium may also be used as enrichment, Grades 1-2 may use Readorium Rising Reader and Grade 3-5 may use Readorium Scholar.

                Readorium provides a great reading experience which starts off with an introductory video presenting the different parts of the books, contained information, and how students navigate to use them. This is followed by the first book with a reading buddy. A reading buddy is a small video of a young person on the left side of the screen who guides students through each text. The book buddy demonstrates how to use strategies to construct meaning. The student independently reads and answers varied types of questions such as multiple-choice, true or false, or word completion. During the process, if a student has reached a specific number of errors, the reading buddy assists by pinpointing hints to direct students in the right direction- learn to attack questions, locate information to answer questions, and understand the rationale for the correct answer. If a student gets too many mistakes in a text, this leads to a drop in the reading level. Though the level drop, students are still provided the same content, questions, and graphics. This is to avoid students from having lesser motivation and confidence to continue reading texts. A dashboard records student progress for the teachers. As students progress, they earn money and tokens that can be spent on educational games, science videos, or to access additional reading materials.

                Readorium offers a free trial. For parents, a home-based reading and science learning is available through Readorium at Home (https://youtu.be/jGZT0ojSwWU). For Educators, Readorium in the Classroom is available. This platform has been created by educators for educators to supplement classroom teaching with an enjoyable online reading and science course. Aside from book information, teachers may also, access student-information in real-time reports such as class reporting on active time on the program, number of books and strategy lessons completed and initial, average, and current reading scores. Additionally, strategy reports with information on scores based on book assessments and featured strategy, as well as content area reports based on book assessments and featured content. Using the given data, the teachers can use them to differentiate instruction based on the difficulty comprehending a strategy or content. Here are some testimonies of teachers and students who have used the program and share how it has impacted student learning-

Teacher Interview:   https://youtu.be/jSaMSpSZOk0    and     https://youtu.be/vtcPUGbtXmo

Student Interview:  https://youtu.be/ovjuT5nmdEU

                Upon reading all this information, it has piqued my interest to continue my exploration with this website. Gaining knowledge that students have difficulties with expository texts like science, this is a remarkable platform to know that may help impact student learning and bridge gap in learning and understanding science content among students.