In our content literacy classes, students will be concentrating on their reading skills using MobyMax. MobyMax is a standards-aligned K–8 learning platform for math, literacy, science, and social studies equipped with adaptive tests,  test-prep lessons, interactive whiteboard activities, and motivational tools. MobyMax also features specific state test-prep activities.  Features include the teachers' ability to assign badges for performance, student goal-setting, student-teacher messaging, and teacher-initiated class contests. The site also has a Wall feature where teachers can post class messages, assignments, events, and polls.

Based on an initial placement test, the program assigns and sequences lessons to address any gaps in knowledge. Teachers can select lessons for each student and can change or delete the lesson sequences at any time. Subsequent tests monitor students' skill growth and "learning velocity," the tool's term for the rate at which each student learns. Students work through lessons to achieve proficiency, which earns them playing time in the site's game area. Teachers can also customize the features and content for students, and parents can monitor their children's scores via a parent portal. Teachers can create a short formative check by compiling questions from the library, or can use a Quick Benchmark as a formative assessment that can be assigned to individual students or to the whole class. 

Students will also be using Membean. Knowing the meanings of words, and being able to use them, is an essential skill for both reading comprehension and effective writing. Researchers have long known that teaching individual words is essential, but it's even more important to build a student's word consciousness. Membean helps:

• Focus limited resources

  Creating an effective vocabulary learning system is arduous and challenging, something which most teachers do not have time to do in the most effective and efficient way.

• Reinforce learning

  Membean's Memory Engine schedules learning and repetitions to ensure that what students learn is not forgotten.

• Capture attention

  Membean provides more than seven different ways of learning a word. With engaging content such as audio, video, and word pictures, Membean's game-like format succeeds in overcoming short attention spans.

• Differentiate instruction

  Membean customizes a learning program for each and every student based on his or her existing skill level and speed of progress.