Recently, Michelle Brandon, Product Marketing Manager, and Brian Williams, Vice President of Product Management, hosted a What’s New Webinar to introduce MindPlay Reading Studio, our personalized learning system. If you missed the live session, don’t worry—we’ve got you covered with a step-by-step overview of all the key takeaways. And you can still watch it here! Join us as we feature MindPlay’s Reading Studio grounded in the science of reading and the Orton-Gillingham method, highlighting specialized screeners for early warning signs and our new Decodable Book Collection.
Introducing MindPlay Reading Studio!
MindPlay Reading Studio represents a significant leap forward in addressing the persistent challenges faced by educators in reading intervention. Our innovative Personalized Learning System (PLS) is reimagining reading instruction grounded in the science of reading. We address these issues head-on with new modules and redesigned features.
Persistent Challenges in Reading Intervention Technology
During the webinar, we explored some of the enduring issues that educators encounter with existing reading intervention solutions:
- Engagement: Keeping both teachers and students engaged with learning materials and supplementary resources remains a critical challenge.
- Incoherence: Educators often rely on multiple, disconnected systems to assess, teach, and apply literacy skills, leading to fragmented instruction.
- Cost: The time and resources teachers spend supporting intervention efforts can be significant, straining both budgets and instructional time.
These challenges contribute to disjointed instruction, missed opportunities to build higher-level comprehension skills, and limited reinforcement of foundational reading abilities. MindPlay Reading Studio is designed to address these pain points with a comprehensive, integrated approach while still grounded in the science of reading and the Orton-Gillingham approach.
Reimagining Reading Instruction with a Personalized Learning System
What is a PLS?
A Personalized Learning System (PLS) is an innovative approach that tailors lessons to individual student interests and learning styles. For more information on MindPlay Reading Studio, take a look at Exploring Trends with Michelle Brandon & Brian Williams.
Introducing New Modules in MindPlay Reading Studio
MindPlay Reading Studio offers options to create an overall analysis of a student’s literacy journey. This unified, end-to-end solution covers assessment, acquisition, application, and analysis, ensuring every student receives the targeted support they need. MindPlay incorporates its research-backed foundational program with new targeted modules to support student growth by allowing real-time data to both students and teachers.
ASSESS with Signals:
Universal Screener conducts periodic benchmark testing to track progress, while the Dyslexia Screening identifies students early who may be at risk for dyslexia. MindPlay’s unique progress monitoring tracks the effectiveness of instruction and intervention, with easy-to-digest reports guiding instructional decisions—all delivered online. Early warning signs are highlighted for proactive intervention to support students with potential reading challenges such as dyslexia or other learning needs.
What’s New?
Oral Reading Fluency (ORF): A teacher-assigned, independently completed fluency assessment that uses voice recognition and sequence matching algorithms to measure accuracy and pace. This tool is time and resource-effective, provides objective results, and reduces student anxiety.
Oral Reading Fluency makes it easy to assess progress.
Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN): RAN assessments are assigned, with grades viewable on the teacher assignments page. This tool offers a double deficit measure with dyslexia screening and is a strong predictor of reading risk.
Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) supports early detection of reading challenges.
ACQUIRE with Reading Coach
MindPlay’s Science of Reading & Orton-Gillingham foundation continues to strengthen student reading skills with Coach. As an adaptive learning experience with targeted, scaffolded support, Coach provides on-screen speech-language pathologist reading coaches. They deliver high-quality instruction that guides students through lessons with immediate, corrective feedback to differentiate and support each student to achieve mastery. This enhances the reading development of all students, from struggling readers to advanced bookworms. As such, MindPlay is able to synthesize the development of foundational skills with the direct application of newly-learned concepts.
MindPlay Reading Coach features on-screen Speech-Language Pathologists to guide students in acquiring multimodal phonics skills, including proper mouth formation of sounds.
APPLY with Personalized Library & Decodable Books
MindPlay’s Personalized Library offers a range of high-interest books to help students apply skills in a real-world context that adapts based on the student’s Lexile®. In addition, students can also use Personalized Reader, which immediately transforms books with instant accommodations for students needing additional support.
Students will love the high-interest selections available in their own Personalized Library, optimized for their specific zone of proximal development based on their Lexile® score.
What’s New?
The MindPlay Decodable Book Collection offers direct application of skills learned in Coach for immediate and targeted practice. It invites students to explore a wide range of engaging, diverse fiction and nonfiction storylines. In addition, the Decodable Book Collection features a variety of artistic styles and scaffolding aligned with MindPlay’s scope and sequence. The Decodable Book Collection offers a wider range and contains one of the largest collections on the market today!
The MindPlay Decodable Book Collection offers a wide variety of culturally-relevant storylines with a variety of artistic styles to support direct application of phonics skills.
ANALYZE with enhanced reporting
The Teacher Dashboard provides a holistic view of student progress, enabling teachers to effortlessly identify classroom trends. In addition, they can gain insights while providing a comprehensive understanding of student strengths and areas for growth.
What’s New?
Class Growth & Usage Charts measure usage and growth over time, ensuring that implementation and performance goals are on track. This enables teachers and parents to gauge student performance relative to their peers. In addition, it allows teachers to quickly identify students who may need additional support. They can also provide encouragement, as well as those who are excelling and working on advanced skills.
Conclusion
During the webinar, we highlighted the importance of personalization in reading instruction. MindPlay offers a holistic approach that integrates quality instruction, a personalized library with decodable books, and seamless assessment tools. This ensures that students are always at the center of learning. This approach is already making a difference in schools using the Studio, where students connect their learning experiences in meaningful ways. Grounded in the science of reading and the Orton-Gillingham approach, MindPlay’s Reading Studio offers a personalized learning system to support your entire educational team. With MindPlay Reading Studio, we are bridging the gap between technology and classroom instruction, ensuring every student has the tools they need to succeed.
Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to innovate and unlock student success!