Gurnee students take third place in the LightSail 25 Reading Challenge

Students from River Trail School in Gurnee are celebrating as the nation's third best readers in the LightSail 25 Challenge, logging an average of 1,184 minutes (more than 19 hours) of reading per student during the past month. The school will receive a prize of a library of premium e-books, valued at $1,000.

"The LightSail 25 has allowed us to encourage kids to read in a game type atmosphere with real-time feedback, which is so important to today's kids, who are used to a competitive, gaming environment," said River Trail School librarian Lauren Weir. "My favorite part was the daily recognition where the playing field was equalized and anybody could be in the top 10, not by reading ability, but by using grit and perseverance to put in the time. It fostered healthy competition between classes and all along the way, the end goal of kids painlessly reading more was achieved without them even realizing it!"

The reading contest tracked the average minutes read per participant on the LightSail platform across the U.S. First prize was awarded to Forest Brook Elementary School in Hauppauge, NY and second prize was awarded to a charter school in the Bronx, NY.

Fourth grade teacher at River Trail School Vita Carnduff said, "As a class, we have taken part in many competitions and challenges this year but none have been more exciting, invigorating, and beneficial than this one. Never before have I seen a group of students more interested and engaged in independent reading time or in such a hurry to rush into class to celebrate how many minutes they read the night before. This has definitely been a positive experience that has brought us closer together."

Created by LightSail Education, the leading education technology dedicated to turning students everywhere into readers, the challenge was open to classrooms across the U.S. that use LightSail, uniting them with the common goal of reading as much as possible during each day of the challenge. The event ran for one month, ending February 10, 2017.

The LightSail 25 Challenge was based upon data that shows the more minutes students read, the more reading growth they achieve. LightSail analyzed the performance of more than 16,000 students to quantify the powerful impact of students reading at least 20 minutes a day on its platform. The data showed that students who read between 20-30 minutes per login grew 2.5 times typical Lexile growth, the standard classroom literacy metric. And, students who read 30 minutes or more per login had average gains three times what is considered typical.

"Beyond the competition, I have found LightSail to be an effective program to engage and reach students at every reading level, with both fiction and nonfiction selections," said Gurnee fourth grade teacher Sandy Hamden. "It works well in the classroom for individual, guided reading groups and even whole class novel studies. The technology can easily be used at home with any device as well, bridging the home-school connection. Most importantly, there are a variety of assessments and activities to connect reading and writing."

LightSail is the adaptive reading platform that helps students, classrooms, and school districts exceed their literacy goals. LightSail students get access to personalized libraries filled with thousands of engaging, just-right texts to choose from. Our award-winning solution embeds in-text assessments that motivate students to increase the volume of their reading along with the difficulty of the texts they choose.

LightSail teachers get real-time access to meaningful data about student reading behavior, comprehension, and growth so they can provide the necessary guidance to enhance learning and encourage a love of reading. For more information, visit http://lightsailed.com.