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As summer draws to a close, teachers and students everywhere are gearing up to begin a school year unlike any other. Task forces across the nation are pondering the question of how to meet students’ educational needs while also keeping the public safe. These leaders cannot rely on precedent to guide them—pandemic schooling is a brand-new reality. However, Hurricane Katrina is one event in recent history that can provide clues about how to resolve the learning losses caused by a long-term disruption in regular schooling. Read more

Read Naturally founder Candyce Ihnot continued her work with students in the Read Naturally reading lab at Faithful Shephard School this past school year. When schools moved to distance learning, Candyce met with Read Naturally Lead Teacher Sarah Voelbel to develop a plan. Their priority was to keep students engaged and to ensure the students could continue building their reading skills. Candyce and Sarah’s plan to combine Read Live and Zoom worked out better than expected. Below, Sarah shares her reflection on the experience. Read more

If you use Read Naturally Strategy programs with your students, you know the importance of proper placement. When students are placed in the correct Read Naturally level and working with an appropriate goal, they will make significantly greater progress. Over the years, we have consistently fine-tuned our placement process to make it more accurate and efficient. To reflect these enhancements, we are pleased to announce a new and improved Placement Packet to accompany our Encore II program. Read more

Here we are at the end of the school year—a school year none of us will soon forget. As we all navigated uncertain territory, we took comfort in our steady communication with you. You took the time to send us suggestions and words of thanks. You helped us adapt our resources to better serve you. And, as always, you read and shared the posts on our blog, RN Bookmark. Read more

Dear Read Naturally Supporters,
We had another blog post planned for today, but it feels more important to write directly to you and acknowledge the incredible sadness our communities are facing right now. Being based in the Twin Cities, we’ve witnessed the tragic events of the past week unfolding in our own neighborhoods, not far from where Read Naturally began. Like you, we are committed to showing up for all students and all communities in pursuit of a more just world. We believe that helping students of all backgrounds achieve literacy is one step toward that goal—but we know there is an incredible amount of work yet to be done. Read more

Distance-learning fatigue has likely set in for everyone by now. As summer break draws closer, it can feel even harder for teachers and students to stay focused. But we owe it to our students—now more than ever—to make these last few weeks count. Allow the Read Naturally team help you out with a bunch of free resources. These resources can easily be sent to students to complete at home. Read more

Every year around this time, we like to provide educators with resources to help their students combat the Summer Slide in reading. This year, students are also facing a potential “COVID Slide” due to the extended disruption of typical classroom learning. The collision of the COVID Slide into the Summer Slide might sound like, well… a bit of a disaster. Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be. Read more

If your school uses Google (G Suite) for Education, teachers and students may now login to Read Live with their Google accounts. Securely accessing Read Live using the same account used for Gmail, Google Classroom, and other Google services streamlines the login process and reduces the burden of needing to keep track of multiple user IDs and passwords. This widely requested enhancement is featured in the latest update to Read Live, which went into effect over the weekend. Read more

What day is it again? Is it still April? All I know for sure is that the novelty of distance learning officially wore off weeks (or has it been months?) ago. Many of us are struggling to give structure to days that feel endless. Our children are looking to us for guidance, which feels a bit like the blind leading the blind. Nobody knows quite how to navigate our new reality. Read more

Distance learning is a challenging new reality for most of us. You and your students likely need extra support during this time, and Read Naturally is here to help. Many of our solutions can be effectively implemented at home to ensure your students continue to make progress in reading. Read more