The Beable® Life-Ready Literacy® System is the first solution that quite literally connects literacy to life. Through Beable, students see explicitly how literacy is their lifeline to life-readiness. They in turn are motivated to accelerate literacy as a means to a more expansive life ahead – from college to career to economic success.
Request a DemoBeable uses core content areas – such as Civics and U.S. History – as the vehicle for reading instruction and Lexile acceleration. Importantly, the system integrates literacy instruction with ACT/SAT prep, workforce skills, and career exposure based on whole-child assessments and goal setting. Beable’s editors differentiate reading material by reading level and the BeableIQ® engine adds to it the multiple dimensions of individualization and personalization to drive greater efficacy and engagement. As one important example, Beable individualizes learning through Companion Courses, such as Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension, that accompany general lessons for students who need this support.
The first step in Beable’s multi-dimensional approach is understanding the whole child. The very foundation of the Beable product experience and the first thing students complete when they get started is a series of surveys and assessments that provide the information needed to understand and support the whole child.
A Lexile placement test is provided in English and Spanish. The assessment was created in conjunction with MetaMetrics, Inc., developers of the globally adopted Lexile framework. Utilizing modern computer-adaptive technology, the assessment arrives at a precise measure of student reading ability in a short amount of time. Of note, students only take a full assessment one time. After that, they need only take mini-assessments which enable the system to provide ongoing adjustments of students’ Lexile levels, so the content is always a good fit for their evolving reading needs.
The Lexile measure feeds necessary information to the BeableIQ engine so it can automatically create an individualized path by establishing the required number of reading sessions and recommended Companion Courses that each student needs to complete to get on track for grade-level comprehension. The Lexile measure allows the BeableIQ engine to automatically match students to appropriate versions of grade-appropriate text, ranging in complexity from a 200L to a 1300L, in English and in Spanish.
A survey of student personality types uses the widely adopted RIASEC career aptitude test. This inventory results in a three-letter code that categorizes each student’s dominant personality traits, which can then be used to help the student identify ideal work and career opportunities.
Based on the results of the RIASEC inventory, BeableIQ suggests careers that match a student’s personality. A career picker allows students to research relevant careers and select the ones of greatest interest. Each career has associated Lexile/reading requirements along with the required number of sessions students need to complete to be on target for those careers.
A survey of students’ hobbies, passions and interests helps build their sense of individuality, lets teachers relate to their students and form connections that extend beyond academic subjects, and makes learning more personalized for students by enabling BeableIQ to recommend reading sessions based on their interests.
Beable also gathers additional information from administrators and teachers including special education classification and tier, ELL needs, and any special accommodations or learning needs.
With this holistic understanding of each student, the BeableIQ engine creates an individualized learning path for each student. BeableIQ calculates the number of sessions delivered at the just-right Lexile level each student needs to meet grade-level literacy goals, college-readiness goals and her own personal career goals. BeableIQ also determines if the student will need extra supports in the form of Companion Courses, which are courses that prepare struggling students for general lessons. Companion Courses include Reading Comprehension, Vocabulary, Decoding and Content-Area Knowledge. We also provide an Extension Companion Course for gifted students. Together, the student and the teacher create a plan that maximizes instructional time both in and out of the classroom, allowing the student to reach the optimal number of general and Companion sessions.
Once each student is presented with her own individualized path to achieve college and career readiness, the instruction begins.
Students’ individualized coursework comprises a combination of academic and special interest content. Academic content typically is assigned and required by the classroom teacher. Students select special interest content on their own, based on their individual interests.
Course List:
The Beable offering is noteworthy for its understanding of the mindset of middle and high school students. Features that engage and motivate students and that ensure product ‘stickiness’ are woven throughout:
Immersive, interactive art is at the center of the user experience. The product features an illustrated community map with buildings that represent the topics covered in reading sessions.
- For example, students access civics lessons by clicking on a courthouse, and they access the career exploration section by clicking on a career fair banner on the map.
- Students can hover over interactive points that reveal relevant facts (for example, hovering over a police officer will reveal the Lexile reading level required for this occupation).
- To further engage the user in the experience, students can select and customize their avatars to represent themselves in the community.
Students earn points and achievements (called Beabilities) for demonstrating key behaviors within the application.
A leaderboard showcasing student accomplishments encourages competition and collective fun.
