San Diego — Jan. 4, 2016 — Among teachers who have had experience with both Accelerated Reader and the Whooo’s Reading platform, 71 percent prefer Whooo’s Reading. That was the finding from a recent survey by Learn2Earn, creator of Whooo’s Reading and a company dedicated to providing a 21st century alternative in the reading motivation program space.
Sixty-two percent of the 124 survey respondents who currently use Whooo’s Reading have also used or are using Accelerated Reader. Those who preferred Whooo’s Reading commonly cited these three reasons:
Students like it
It motivates students to read more
It fosters a love of reading in students
“Even teachers who did not express a preference for Whooo’s Reading stated that our platform does a better job of motivating reading and fostering a love of reading. That made for a total of 85 percent of survey respondents who considered our platform to be superior in that respect,” said Raphael Menko, the co-founder and CEO of Learn2Earn.
Specifically designed with the motto ‘make sure the kids always win,’ the lively Whooo’s Reading platform makes reading fun by giving students the power of choice, allowing them to read fiction or nonfiction works while incorporating online game elements preferred by today’s digital natives. It encourages students to improve specific CCSS-aligned reading and writing skills, boosts their confidence in writing for authentic audiences, including classmates and family members, and gives teachers the ability to assess reading comprehension skills from any device including a smartphone, tablet or computer.
Students using Whooo’s Reading via their secure personal profiles are inspired to read and think critically—and when doing so, are rewarded with virtual Wisdom Coins to personalize and embellish their Owlvatar. This adds a sense of ownership to their work, which motivates them to try harder, thereby improving reading, comprehension and writing skills. Students are further engaged by their class's interactive newsfeed, which displays the books, comments and accomplishments of their classmates.
“Our teachers using Whooo’s Reading also have customization options allowing them to create their own question prompts to engage students and promote comprehension,” said Menko. “Equally accessible are the growing number of preloaded questions aligned with all Common Core reading anchors (K-8) that come standard in each account. Teachers have the ability to review each student's reading responses and give qualitative and quantitative feedback. They can also analyze individual and class-wide progress as well as each class’s mastery of Common Core reading anchors from their data center.”
A survey of more than 2,700 students in grades one through five, released in September 2015, revealed six months of consistently using the platform resulted in students significantly increasing the text complexity of the books they chose, as determined by Lexile measures. The increase in text complexity was particularly pronounced for students who began the year reading books below-grade level difficulty. For example, the books read by struggling third-grade readers increased in text complexity by more than 300L on average while books chosen by normal to strong readers in that grade level increased by an average of 120L in just six months.
About Learn2Earn
Learn2Earn is a young startup company focused on providing a 21st-century alternative to traditional literacy programs and school fundraising platforms. Unlike other reading or fundraising programs, their service is child-centric rather than educator-centric. That means that everything they develop is focused on benefitting the children who use it, on making reading fun, and improving specific reading and writing skills as outlined in the Common Core State Standards. In the area of fundraising, they offer something that most fundraising companies don’t: an educational platform for schools to use to raise money. Students aren’t selling; they’re improving their reading skills. For more information, visit https://www.learn2earn.org
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