My Review of Read Theory!

As an educator, I always find there is some new tech, app, or website that is shown to staff every year for them to try.  You end up trying out the newest and fanciest one, only to find that there are options missing if you don’t pay for them, or it doesn’t suit your needs.  After week one of this class, Sydney had mentioned that her school uses Read Theory.  I never got the chance to ask anymore questions about it, so I figured I would do some of my own research and check it out.  Read Theory offers students the chance to have a personalized reading comprehension library at their fingertips.

OVERVIEW OF READ THEORY

Getting setup is easy.  Create an account similar to other platforms, set up a class, and send out the code to the students.  Students begin with some introductory reading to allow the program to see their reading current reading level and understanding.  From there, the AI built into the program, sets them up with a program tailored to their levels.  They complete a reading and answer a series of reading comprehension questions.  I’ve been using the program now for almost three weeks and so far the students have responded well to it.  Best of all, the program is free to use.  Of course, there is a paid features you can access but unlocking premium content.  So far I have found the free program to be just fine as an additional reading tool in my ELA 5/6 class.

Pricing for Read Theory Premium

Infographic of class data. Red dot is pre-test score. Green current level.

The site is setup to be quite user friendly.  It does a good job of providing quick visual charts and graphs to track student progress.  I appreciate being able to quickly check in and see how many quizzes my students have taken and where they are progressing.  The students enjoy that they can earn knowledge points for questions answered correctly, which eventually earns them badges as they work their way through the tests.  The program is American so it is graded on the Lexile scale, but they provide a conversion guide to F & P standards.

PROGRAM STRENGTHS

• Quickly offers supplementary reading comprehension strategies
• Students can easily navigate through
• No Prep for teachers
• Accessible from anywhere with internet connection
• Conversion Guide provided
• Unlimited reading assignments and questions for each grade level
• Free option works great
• Marks and supplies students with instant feedback
• Tests a wide range of reading levels from Grade 1-12

Sample reading and question analysis.

                                                                         PROGRAM WEAKNESSES

Paid features that are not included in the free version,

• If planning to fully use, the paid features give much better insights into areas students need to work on
• A good baseline reading score is needed to comprehend some of the questions
• Still can’t replace conversations about texts that small group interventions can provide
• Content is randomized and not the most engaging

IS IT FOR YOU?

The program is serving my classroom needs 100%.  I’ve even gone so far to show it my Grade 3-6 teachers to implement within their own classrooms.  I hope to see it prove to be a valuable resource in which we might invest into the paid version next year.  Is it enough to teach reading comprehension on its own?  Probably not, but it does allow for teachers to offer another reading platform that students enjoy (so far at least!).