PLAY GAMES

Transforming
readers into fully literate learners through games they love to play.

Expertly-crafted content and award-winning games, powered by the Shoelace Learning Engine™
Learning Engine
MEET
SAM

ELA is Sam’s least favorite class. Paying attention is challenging, and Sam struggles to keep up.

1

Placement Test
In the first 15 minutes of play, Sam’s teacher receives a Placement Test Report with key insights, including current Reading Comprehension Level.

2

Skill Struggle
Sam encounters a stumbling block while answering questions about metaphors. My Coach™ auto-magically intervenes to offer additional support.

3

Assignment In Progress
Sam’s teacher assigns the best “homework” ever, an assignment to complete by playing Dreamscape at home!

4

Racking up the Learning Wins
Sam is really racking up learning moments, climbing the leaderboard, and receiving rewards through the game.

5

Real Results
With just thirty minutes of weekly play, Sam’s reading level has improved one full grade and is on the path to becoming a fully literate learner.

Turn practice into play.

Rated 4.6 by kids 8-15 

With Shoelace games, reading comprehension drives every move. These immersive games make learning an exciting journey, helping students build literacy skills while they play.

A strategy game where players complete reading comprehension practice in order to build, defend, and challenge others.

Race to see who can run the farthest using power-ups earned from completing reading comprehension tasks.

Curriculum-aligned content meets the highest quality standards.


Skill Assigments

Provide powerful, targeted practice where it’s needed.

Scaffold students from learning to application.

Students gain confidence and clear understanding by practicing skills in isolation before applying them to the contexts of reading passages.

Designed to fill the holes in your curriculum.

Bolster students’ performance in foundational areas of language that aren’t always adequately covered in core curriculum, such as grammar, mechanics, word work, and more.

Decodables

Seamless support for readers as they build their comprehension skills.

Set a clear path to competent decoding.

Fortify your phonics instruction with this series of assignments, sequenced to emphasize individual spelling patterns in an order ideal for learning.

Support older students working on foundational skills.

Bridge students’ transition from phonics to comprehension with age-appropriate assignments delivered through games that appeal across elementary and middle school.

Test Prep

Transforms test prep into an engaging experience your learners look forward to.

Set your students up for success, and ensure there are no surprises on test day.

Test Prep assignments act as a dry run for students to apply test-taking strategies, and provide you with accurate insights into how students perform at their best.

Build test-takers’ ability, confidence, and buy-in.

Game-based delivery means fun, focused practice where students encounter the level of rigor expected on test day without test anxiety getting in the way.

Charts & Graphs

Build muscles that broaden learners’ interdisciplinary skill set.

Help students unpack data, whether it be in textual, visual, or graphical form.

Support your teaching of text features with assignments that present information in a wide range of formats, including maps, diagrams, and more.

Prepare your students to read across the curriculum successfully.

Students attend to both textual and visual components of reading passages to support their comprehension, often while learning about topics related to social studies, science, and mathematics.

Genres

Inspire even your choosiest readers to broaden their reading horizons.

Immerse your students in a literary genre.

Students deep dive into a select genre with each targeted collection, grasping the genre-specific characteristics that define each literary form.

Prompt students to read widely.

Deliver passages spanning thirteen genres, across both fiction and nonfiction— with high-interest assignments in genres they may have not yet experienced.

Themes

Curated collections that feature shared experiences and foster further exploration.

Relatable, high-interest collections that deeply resonate with readers.

Captivate students’ interest with text collections centered on top literary themes that reflect kids’ everyday life experiences.

Put unifying literary experiences within reach for your readers by building their background knowledge.

Advance your students’ background knowledge on common literary topics and themes, providing them with frames of reference for future reading and learning.

Perspectives

Broaden learners’ horizons and scaffold the development of key skills for literary analysis.

Bring your students to a state of full literacy where they confidently digest varying perspectives in what they read.

Build students’ critical thinking skills with assignments that call upon them to evaluate author’s purpose, point of view, bias, and more.

Spark the exchange of ideas with expertly curated text collections.

Get students comparing and contrasting with no-prep activities especially designed to juxtapose different points of view on given topics.

Easy set-up with the tools you already use.


Top tier teacher tools and detailed reports.

My Coach

My Coach is like having a personal assistant who is constantly monitoring your players data and working to spot anomalies. When it detects that an intervention is needed, it takes control and immediately assigns the player an intervention assignment tailored to the skill and the player’s skill tier.

Should the player need additional assistance after the intervention, we’ll notify you, so you can follow up with them in person.

Player Activity

The Player Activity Report tracks the number of questions each learner answers and provides accuracy stats. At Shoelace, we prioritize accuracy over speed to support learner development, and our games are designed to incentivize correct answers and discourage guessing. This report is a powerful tool for assessing student engagement and highlighting the importance of accuracy.

Skills Report

The Skills Report measures a learner’s understanding of an individual English/Language Arts skill as they answer questions and progress through the skill tiers: from Learning, to Practicing, and finally Mastering. It provides you with clear insight into the skills that your learners are encountering as they play, and allows you to chart their progress on both the class and individual level.

Reading Report

This report is your “home base” for key insights into each learner’s progress. It displays each student’s Reading Comprehension Level (RCL), assigned by the Learning Engine after their first session’s stealth Placement Test. The Learning Engine then delivers personalized content to improve their RCL, with progress shown in this report. You’ll also see the varying RCL levels in your classroom, which can help with student groupings.

Data-backed, research-driven results.

Check out these insights from pilots conducted in spring 2024.

0%

of students report that they felt better after playing Shoelace games.

0%

of students report they identify more as a reader after playing Shoelace games.

0%

of respondents reported that their students reacted positively to the academic content.

Did you know?

Students who play for 30 minutes a week will predictably increase one grade level of reading comprehension in 11 to 20 weeks of play.

Unmatched player engagement means higher literacy outcomes.

Class Missions

Our most popular feature with educators and students alike! Launch a Class Mission and watch as your students band together to battle a monster by answering questions on their individual device. Questions answered correctly defeat the monster, while incorrect answers will help the monster to regain life. Build camaraderie and inspire unparalleled engagement with every student in your class.

Class & Player Leaderboards​

An excellent tool for igniting classroom engagement, fostering camaraderie, and injecting a dose of healthy competition into learning. Shoelace leaderboards run on a biweekly cycle, incentivizing your players to rack up the learning wins. The top players and classes receive a celebratory, in-game reward!

Player Rewards

We believe in the power of positive reinforcement, and so we make it easy for educators to dole out Player Rewards via the dashboard. These in-game rewards are a fantastic way to acknowledge the hard work (and play) of any student.

Award winning and globally recognized.

edweek

The Future of Learning is FUN!

Explore the incredible power of game-based learning with our friend, Dr. Kris.

LEARN MORE

Parents and educators around the globe trust Shoelace to build reading confidence.

We’re on a mission to deliver one billion learning moments.

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Learning Moments Delivered™

Each LMD represents a player’s interaction with a piece of Shoelace educational content, signaling to teachers that students are deeply engaged in educational content as they play.

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I’m a student

I came here to play games!

For educators and parents


Build reading confidence and boost literacy skills. Gain valuable insights on progress with engaging games that your kids will beg you to play!

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