Program Description
Magnetic Reading is a print-based, supplemental reading program, intended to be used for 30-45 minutes a day. The program is designed to support grade 3 – 5 students’ comprehension skills and is intended to be used as the comprehension strand within the daily reading block. Magnetic Reading provides students with culturally-relevant and high-interest grade-level texts and includes a digital library of educator resources intended to support whole-class and differentiated instruction, as well as scaffolds and protocols.
Program Outcomes
The impact of Magnetic Reading has been examined in two studies, a retrospective quasi-experimental study that took place during the 2021-2022 school year and a prospective study that took place during the 2022-2023 school year, both in Iowa. The first study included students from seven schools, three representing Magnetic Reading students and four representing comparison students. All schools were small, rural, mostly White and Title 1 eligible. Propensity Score Matching was used to identify a sample of grade 3-5 treatment and comparison students who were equivalent on baseline characteristics, resulting in an analytic sample of 214 Magnetic Reading students and 214 comparison students. The use of Magnetic Reading had a positive and statistically significant effect on spring i-Ready Diagnostic scores after controlling for baseline achievement (effect size = +0.23). The second study matched 473 students in grades 3-5 from four treatment schools to 2,628 students from 30 comparison schools on student demographics and fall achievement scores. Accounting for student characteristics and prior achievement, students attending a school with Magnetic Reading scored significantly higher on the Iowa state ELA test compared to similar students in schools where Magnetic Reading was not used (effect size = +0.22). These results qualify Magnetic Reading for an ESSA Moderate rating.
Staffing Requirements
No additional staff are required to use Magnetic Reading. Implementations do require points of contact to assist with the initial set-up of Magnetic Reading and disseminate communications to other staff members. These points of contact are guided by i-Ready Partners who offer assistance throughout the implementation period and beyond.
Professional Development/Training
Curriculum Associates’ professional learning is centered on developing the capacity of educators with different ranges of experiences to implement key instructional moves. Curriculum Associates offers a course designed to introduce educators to the program’s fundamentals and key practices, as well as tailored support offerings that dive deeper into specific instructional moves. On-site development days are six hours with the annual recommendation for number of sessions varying depending on implementation length. For continued training, Curriculum Associates offers free professional development through its OEL platform. Digital courses teach product features, suggest implementation best practices, and share ways educators across the country use Curriculum Associates’ products in their classrooms. To learn more about professional development offerings, please visit https://www.curriculumassociates.com/professional-development.
Technology
Digital Access for Magnetic Reading (3–5) may be attained via the educator-facing i-Ready Learning Teacher Toolbox. In this Toolbox, educators can find digital versions of program materials to support remote or blended learning, as well as Interactive Tutorials to further engage their students.
The i-Ready Learning Teacher Toolbox is accessed through a digital platform: i-Ready Connect. This can be accessed on a variety of Windows, MacOS, and Chromebook™ machines with browsers that enable JavaScript®, cookies, and pop-ups. To learn more about the technical requirements, please visit https://www.curriculumassociates.com/support/technical-requirements.