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The 2020 Great Reading Games have come to a close, and we've sparked joy of reading in even more students than before! Check out our data and some twitter highlights from the last few weeks below:
GRG Data…..
Schools opted in: 2909
Students Reading: 46,366
Pages Read: 13,967,038
Number of students reading in the GRG for 2020 was 46,740, up 25% from last year’s 37,500
The number of schools that had at least one reader in 2020 broke 2,000 (2,033) up 30% from 2019 (1,571) and up 67% from 2018.
In the coming months, the Reading Programs team will track the FOPI C schools that had readers in GRG. Last year 27% of C schools that had a reader in GRG became an A school. In 2020, we had 552 C schools participate in GRG, up in the range of 25% from last year. If the conversion rate of +27% holds for two years, we have a reading program proven to move C schools to A. Did you catch that? Did you see how we are using the data to provide PROVEN programs for schools?
(FOPI= Fidelity of Program Implementation – FOPI A are our highest performing schools and FOPI C are the lowest performing)
GRG Books
Here are the top 5 books that were added to bookshelves and kept our students reading for the final week of our 2020 Great Reading Games. We see that a title from Dan Gutman's My Weird School Daze series jumped into the top spot in anticipation of Dan's webinar! Do some of those other titles look familiar? The Dog Man books were the top titles for last year's games! We love seeing all the titles that have moved in and out of the top 5 list this year.
Along with Dan's book in the top 5 list this week the kids are also reading: - the first book in a series about Humphrey the classroom hamster - the first book in the Rowley Jefferson series from Diary Of A Wimpy Kid author Jeff Kinney - 2 books in the ever popular Dog Man series by Dav Pilkey
While we are sad to see the Games end we want to continue seeing the increased engagement and usage continue throughout the rest of the school year and over the summer!
Something to Tweet About We LOVE these posts from Kimberly Sanders, sharing the fun and joy her students get with reading:
#CCEcougars get into some funny positions once they settle into a good 📖!😂😄😅#GRG20 @Learning_Ally @SuessShannon #Risdsaysomething
(Image is a screenshot of a young girl wearing a bright pink coat with fur around the hood. She’s sitting backwards in the chair. She isn’t wearing any shoes and you can see her panda socks sticking out from underneath the back support. She’s holding her phone and she has a slight smile while listening to her book with her headphones)
(Image is of Kimberly Sanders's tweet that reads “Their future is bright because they read!” Below the tweet is a picture of two boys standing back to back with their arms folded and wearing sunglasses. They are looking very James Bond-like!)
Holly Sanford's students "continue to arrive early” for reading sessions with Learning Ally... This means that not only students, but parents and families needed to be engaged and involved in GRG. They had to be intentional about having their kids there early to read before school. Our impact goes beyond the classroom!
(Image is of Holly Sanford’s tweet that reads “Final push for @Learning_ally #grg20 These students continue to arrive early to get in an early morning Great Reading Games/Learning Ally session!”. Below the tweet is an image of a classroom with students sitting at their desks in front of computers. We are seeing their backs and the bright lights of their computers with their books. Every student is wearing headphones and look to be quite content reading!)
There’s Nothing Weird About Reading with Dan Gutman It’s not every day that you can reach over 680 schools and 25,000 students and teachers with fun, laughter and excitement about reading. Oh wait! If you are Learning Ally, you sure can!
In last month's webinar, we learned about Dan Gutman’s journey as a writer, how he got rejected many times and continued to write because he believed in his books, how he didn’t like reading as a child, and we even got to see the inside of his mouth!
If you weren’t able to attend the webinar live, you can watch the recording. Dan’s only request is that we do not share the recording via social media or anywhere on the internet. The recording was sent to everyone that registered.
(Image is of Dan’s face, smiling widely, and holding up his unfinished manuscript of “Mr. Marty Loves A Party!”. The manuscript is regular 8.5 x 11 paper with the words “Mr. Marty Loves A Party” written in red marker and in all caps taking up most of the page.)
This year's Great Reading Games may be over, but don’t worry - Spring Into Reading and Summer Reading Together are right around the corner.
During our Spring Into Reading Program, we will be inviting everyone to participate in a couple of the fun reading days:
· D.E.A.R. Day (Drop Everything and Read) will be on April 12th
· Poem in Your Pocket will be on April 30th
Finally, our total readers this week increased to 203,005 with over 94 million pages read and 35,790 at frequency – a 23% increase over last year for schools!
Our big fundraising event begins this week and we need proud Macintosh users to lend a hand with our latest software projects.
Building Books for Student Success (BBSS) is here! This annual fundraising event is one of the best ways that you can help us continue to do our great work of helping students as well as their schools, teachers, and even parents. Our online program will guide you through putting together a page for collecting donations, sharing the story and goals of Learning Ally, and promoting your own efforts. Visit the Learning Ally Building Books Campaign page on the Learning Ally website to get involved.
If you have questions about the program, need assistance setting up a donation page, or would like to know more about Learning Ally donations, please contact volunteer@learningally.org and put the phrase Donor Support in the subject line of your email.
Our EasyBooks developers are working to create a web application of the software: WebEB. This exciting development will let us keep EasyBooks entirely online, meaning no more downloads or version updates and no need for different versions of the software for Windows or Macintosh users. At present, WebEB is still in testing with a small group of users. But that's where you can help us! We need more users with Macintosh computers to join our test group and use the application.
WebEB functions just like EasyBooks with a few changes to the interface and some features still in a development state. Bugs are to be expected - this is a test after all - and you'll be asked to document those experiences and contribute to an online discussion documenting and correcting those flaws. If this project sounds interesting and you have access to the right computer equipment, please contact Eleanor Cotton for more information at ecotton@learningally.org. Please note, this is a test of Mac OS desktop and laptop computers, not iOS devices like iPads or iPhones. Those are not compatible with WebEB and are not part of this test.
Maria M., CJ H., Kaumeshua H., Emily C., Megan H., Audrey K., Jenna S., Kurt H., Judy S., Dawn K., Christian L., Tania P., Aaron T., Alicia H., Therese B., Kristin L., Rick S., Brian H., Derek M., Madi T., Madison S., Bob M., Shannon K., Becky C., Rebecca H-P., Lisa J.