In late 2021, Microsoft released Reading Progress - a tool designed to help students become better readers and save educators time. Now, a new update and integration is here: Reading Coach. In this blog post, you’ll learn what Reading Progress is and how it works, tips and tricks and how Reading Coach can help your students. Click any subheading below to jump to that section.
What is Microsoft’s
Reading Progress?
Reading Progress is a free tool built into Microsoft Teams designed to support and track reading fluency in your class. Students record their reading on camera and submit it to you. Imagine this, the same type of technology used in the Flipgrid Shorts Camera, combined with the power of Immersive Reader and the distribution power of Microsoft Teams. All of these ideas together form Microsoft’s Reading Progress. If you’re interested in learning more about all the nitty gritty details, click here or the image below. We’ll walk you through everything!
Tips and Tricks When Using Microsoft’s Reading Progress
One of the things we love most about Microsoft’s Reading Progress is that it is appropriate for all ages. We love how it can quickly and efficiently assess our students and how it saves time grading running records. We also appreciate how easy it is to use. Once your students are in the assignment, they’re recording themselves in (literally) just several clicks. But now that we have had almost a full year working with Reading Progress, here’s a few tips we can share:
If you teach younger students, we recommend lowering the sensitivity.
Younger students may have difficulty enunciating clearly, which sometimes leads to errors. This can be remedied by lowering the sensitivity to “Less sensitive.”
Take advantage of the option to limit time.
Toggling on the time limit might prevent frustration if a student is struggling with a passage. If a student is fluently reading, they will still feel successful when the timer stops. This feature can be turned on/off when creating the assignment - directly under the “Number of Attempts."
Assignments are now editable!
A little known secret is that Reading Progress assignments are now fully editable! When Reading Progress launched, if you made a mistake on the assignment, you would have to delete it and start all over again. Now, in an assignment, click the three dots and then click “Edit assignment.” No more deleting!
Reading Progress isn’t just for running records.
If you’re a primary teacher, you can use it to assess sight words, too! That’s right…automatically grade sight words! You can learn all about how this works in our blog post. Click here or the image to read all about it!
What is Microsoft’s Reading Coach and How Can it Help My Students?
Microsoft’s Reading Coach is another free add on to Reading Progress. Now, after your students have completed reading a passage, Reading Coach will intelligently (and immediately) identify words that the student struggled with. It will then provide the list of words to practice, prior to the student turning in the assignment. Here’s how it works:
Once a student has stopped the Reading Progress recording, Reading Coach will generate a list of words that the student struggled with. The student can then take time to practice the word(s).
When students click on a word, they have the option to hear the word read allowed, stretch the syllables out, or (if available) “see the word,” which pops up an illustration describing the term. Students can earn a star on the word for correctly saying the word by clicking on the microphone (located on the bottom of the screen).
Students can easily go through the words using the arrows. Notice, all of this can be done prior to turning in the assignment. Reading Coach is optional, though, and students may bypass it by just turning the assignment in. We recommend training your students to take the time to use it, which will give them even more (independent) practice on terms they struggled with.
But, students aren’t the only ones in on the fun! Educators now have access to valuable insights (available through Microsoft Teams by clicking on a student’s assignment, then clicking “Insights.” This report will generate information like correct words per minute, accuracy rate, practiced words, and much more.
If you’re a primary teacher, you can also use Reading Coach to help your students practice their sight words! Check out our blog post for downloadable templates of the 220 Dolch (Sight) Words. Upload them one-by-one and then students can practice the words ten at a time. If a student misses a word, Reading Coach will automatically help tech it to them!
-- Stay tuned for more Microsoft Education ideas that you can use in your classroom! Be sure to follow us on social media (@TheMerrillsEDU everywhere) for more! 👓👗
For more tips, tricks and lesson ideas for making learning more interACTIVE, check out our books The InterACTIVE Class and Flipgrid in the InterACTIVE Class on Amazon!
