We often hear variations of “how much should my students play?” Well, we have an answer for you. For the best results, aim for your students to do three things:
- Play consistently – that means they play more weeks than they skip.
- Aim for a minimum of 25 question attempts every week.
- Work to keep their accuracy over 50%. (Check out our 50% Accuracy and the Goldilocks Rule blog post).
That’s it. If your players do those three things, we know they (and you) will start to see improvements in their reading comprehension in as little as 4 weeks!
Where do these recommendations come from?
Put simply, data from players. Over the past couple of years we have run a lot of pilots with schools and classes all across North America. This has given us a chance to dig deep into the data not just quantitatively (which we’re always doing) but also qualitatively with teachers (just like you) who’ve let us know what works (and what doesn’t).
From these pilots, we’ve found that the three benchmarks listed above are far and above the most accurate predictors of growth in a player’s Reading Comprehension Level.
Note: Reading Comprehension Level or RCL is a proprietary Shoelace levelling system that takes into account not just the readability of a passage but also the questions (specifically the types of skills) associated with the passage. A +0.1 improvement to a RCL is approximately equivalent to one month reading growth.
Oklahoma Tournament Results
We recently ran a 4-week tournament in Oklahoma with 7 schools and over 1,200 students. The results were amazing (watch the Oklahoma Tournament Winners video for an overview).
When we looked at the RCL growth, here’s what we saw:
- Players who met the question target (minimum 100 questions over the four weeks) with any accuracy: +0.2 (or 2 months)
- Players who met the accuracy target (>50%) with any # of questions: +0.3 (or 3 months)
- Players who met both accuracy and question targets: +0.4 (or 4 months)
This is not an isolated experience, nor only relevant when combined with a tournament. We see very similar numbers in schools, with the only caveat that it’s taking them about twice as long for the same level of growth (the students really crushed it with the volume of questions they answered during the tournament).
Tammie Mackey and the Creative Lemon Ostriches
Tammie Mackey, a 5th grade teacher from the OK Tournament at Purcell Intermediate saw phenomenal growth in her students RCLs’. Her success can be attributed to the class culture and atmosphere she created around the tournament, driving each student to do their best.
“My students were very excited when I explained that they would be competing against other schools across the state. To build upon their excitement I worked with them to use AI to create several mascot options that represented their Shoelace team name; and, they voted on their favorite. With the buy-in complete—They were totally committed and worked hard to get daily required tasks managed in order to optimize and lengthen their game time! The RCL growth was unbelievably amazing and their confidence in themselves was a priceless gift that has spilled over into ALL SUBJECT areas.“
– Tammie Mackey
These results are replicable, repeatable and possible for your students too. Ready to get started? Create an account today.