READWORKS INC

At ReadWorks, we have a deep-seated belief that ALL students deserve a high-quality reading education, one that is based on research, in order to give them the best possible chance at success in school and in life. By providing free materials to make all teachers more effective at teaching regardless of zip code, we are doing our part to move closer to a world of successful readers with bright futures ahead. By providing reading content that reflects the diversity of our world—and that is freely accessible to all—we work to ensure that every child can see themselves reflected in their reading materials.

After 10 years of building a world-class technology platform and a robust user community, ReadWorks is beginning a new phase by pivoting towards an even deeper focus on impact and equity and building a more robust organizational infrastructure to support its work. The pandemic exposed, for all to see, the gaps in opportunity and access within the education system. ReadWorks’ future focus is designed to help mitigate those gaps in impact and equity. ReadWorks’ overarching principles for the next several years are:

-Deepening Impact by actively promoting and improving teacher practices and platform features that help students achieve improved outcomes in reading comprehension.
-Supporting Educational Equity by critically examining ReadWorks’ products and services through an equity lens and engaging teachers to use our equity-focused products and features.
-Building Our Talent, Technology, and Infrastructure to support and advance these efforts and create a sustainable organization.

ReadWorks is applied cognitive science. Everything we do is based on the highest quality research, beginning with the seminal findings of the National Reading Panel and RAND Reading Study Group and continuing with current, highly-regarded research on reading comprehension and related factors (see our research page: https://about.readworks.org/the-research.html). As a supplemental curriculum and one tool in a teacher's toolkit for reading instruction, ReadWorks resources help teachers apply the science on how diverse learners move toward reading comprehension.

We are also committed to studying the impact of our research-based offerings with third-party researchers. Findings show early promise of impact, as well as insights we can offer to the broader field. With these studies, we are currently at ESSA Tier 3. We are working on additional research partnerships to build our research base towards Tiers 2 and 1, and we are always open to exploring new opportunities to enhance our research. See our external evaluations section for more information on our proven methods.
Many organizations seek to address the literacy crisis, yet ReadWorks stands out in 3 key ways: (1) the unmatched size of our library; (2) our research-based digital tools, features, and content; and (3) our superb teacher guidance.

ReadWorks offers one of the largest, highest-quality library of curated nonfiction and fiction texts in the country with research-based curricular supports and formative assessments. We also offer digital tools for differentiation to help teachers support all of their students, including English language learners, struggling students, and reluctant readers. Our digital tools include eBooks, human-voice audio, variable audio speed, text magnification, and more–all for free and easily accessible online.

We also offer free training through webinars, including our Remote and Hybrid Learning webinar series viewed live or on-demand over 110,000 times from March 2020 through January 2021. Our data show that our webinars positively impact teacher practice, with attendees more likely to use ReadWorks with research-recommended frequency.

It is this unique combination of high-quality content, easy-to-use features and tools, and teacher guidance that has created our incredible community of over 1 million educators and helped us to reach millions of students each year, enabling greater impact than other organizations.

In 2018, Terry Bowman joined ReadWorks as Executive Director. Terry has dedicated his career to the service of at-risk and low-income populations. He has held leadership positions, including Vice-President, Education and Workforce, at Mentored, LLC; Executive Director, Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), New York; and Senior Director, Labor Policy and Implementation, at the New York City Department of Education.

Terry is supported by Kathy Bloomfield, our Chief Operating Officer, who has been with ReadWorks for 9 years and has held senior leadership roles in direct marketing and marketing services for Digitas, Warner Music, Time Inc., Book of the Month Club, and Time Life Books. Kathy also taught second grade.

In 2019, we expanded our internal leadership capacity with our first Chief Academic Officer, Susanne Nobles. Susanne has spent her career working to empower educators and students with research, structures, and tools for meaningful and effective learning. Susanne also has over 20 years of experience as an adjunct instructor of early-stage teachers, a K-12 teacher, and a school administrator. Her Ph.D. research focused on creating effective digital communities of practice. ​

Under their leadership, ReadWorks has thrived with an increased focus on sustainability, growth, and increasingly tailored support for teachers and students based on cognitive science research and ReadWorks data.

ReadWorks’ dedicated and talented staff is composed of three teams: (1) the teaching, learning, and content team that delivers our high-quality passages, designs curricular supports, and offers teacher guidance, (2) our engineering team that works to continuously improve and build upon the ReadWorks platform; and (3) our administrative team that secures funding and oversees operations.

In just ten years, ReadWorks has built a world-class technology platform that delivers evidence-based content, curricular supports, and other features to improve students’ reading comprehension goals. As mentioned above, ReadWorks’ future focus is designed to help mitigate those gaps in impact and equity. ReadWorks’ overarching principles for the next several years are deepening impact, supporting educational equity, and building our talent, tech, and infrastructure.

Deepening Impact:
ReadWorks will seek to deepen its impact on student achievement by actively promoting teacher practices and platform features proven to support that goal. This will mean:

-Placing an emphasis on frequent and targeted usage, especially around evidence-based teacher practices, resources, and digital supports.
-Linking usage metrics to current and future research to deepen the organization’s evidence for impact on student outcomes.
-Offering new and additional support services to select educators, especially those working in under-resourced schools or with special populations, such as students with disabilities.

Supporting Educational Equity:
ReadWorks will center its development, improvement, and promotion of its products and services in an understanding of what supports educational equity with a focus on schools that do not receive equitable resources. This work will begin by bringing to the table people from these communities for us to learn from and with. Through this collaboration, we will seek to:

-Better understand the needs and challenges of these educators, so that together, we can help to improve student outcomes.
-Continue to gather and reflect together on data on teacher practice in these schools so we can effectively move more of these educators toward the routines and practices that increase the likelihood of successful outcomes for their students.
-Actively promote high expectations for all students, meeting them where they are today and committing to helping teachers to move them to higher levels of achievement.
-Further promote existing products and features that support educational equity to ensure that a far larger number of ReadWorks educators use them.

Talent, Technology, and Infrastructure:
ReadWorks’ talent, technology, and infrastructure are how the organization achieves its goals, so these areas must be nurtured to create sustainability and a culture of continual improvement. This involves both using a critical eye to see where the organization collectively can improve the status quo - including working toward stated diversity, equity, and inclusion goals so that ReadWorks staff and Board better reflect its diverse user population. All current processes, systems, and offerings will be examined to ensure maximum efficiency and productivity, and staff professional development must be prioritized to support the loyal and dedicated team in taking on new challenges.