eSpark’s reading curriculum gets a boost
What’s more exciting than a good book? How about dozens of them? eSpark has partnered with Capstone, an interactive eBook publisher, to bring a wide variety of fiction and nonfiction titles to our Quests and SGS lessons.
What it looks like
Team eSpark has done two big things to support this endeavor, both of which are now live in our Quests, with new Small Group Skills being added as we go:
1. New activities
Our Learning Design team has been hard at work writing new checks for understanding to support various instructional goals using passages from these texts. Thanks to these efforts, we have been able to replace 80 third-party activities spanning multiple grade levels throughout the program. This is another big step in our ongoing mission to make the learning experience more consistent by bringing content in-house whenever possible.
2. A new eReader
Our engineering team has deployed a new eReader to support accessibility and ease of use for students when engaging with this new content (and future original stories from eSpark). For the Capstone titles, the eReader will highlight words and play audio in sync, and students can pause, play, or reset the read-aloud as needed. The deployment of these new titles is fully in line with the same high-quality content standards you have come to expect from eSpark.
Why it matters
By adding this diverse collection of recognizable texts, eSpark is supporting your efforts to make reading fun for all students. The new library includes everything from informational texts like The History of Telecommunications and Understanding Weather Patterns to whimsical fiction like Catkwondo and Seriously, Cinderella is SO Annoying.
Our goal, as always, is to pair engagement you can feel with results you can see. These books will enable us to serve the dual purpose of delivering standards-aligned reading instruction while also sparking a love of reading in all eSparkers.
Here’s the full list of licensed titles from Capstone released in this first round of updates (more to come soon):
- All About Earth: Exploring the Planet with Science Projects
- Animal Feet: A Song About Animal Adaptations
- Animal Strength and Combat Sports
- Becoming an Astronaut
- Brave Fire Truck
- Catkwondo
- Communication Skills
- Dalmation in a Digger
- Flowers
- Helpful Tractor
- How Can People Help Communities?
- John Henry, Harmmerin’ Hero
- Little Lizard’s Big Party
- Me and My Cat
- My Family, Your Family, Our Families
- My Footprints
- My Home, Your Home, Our Homes
- Saturn
- Seriously, Cinderella is SO Annoying
- The Barnyard
- The Beach Bandit
- The Cat Food Mystery: A Pet Club Story
- The History of Telecommunications
- The Noisy Night: A Pet Club Story
- Too Many Carrots
- Understanding Weather Patterns
- What a Kick: How a Clutch World Cup Win Propelled Women’s Soccer
- Working on the Pony Express: A This or That Debate
We couldn’t be more thrilled about the positive impact this partnership will have on our reading curriculum, and we can’t wait to see how students rate these exciting new activities.