Key points:
Five years ago, we were already in talks about investing in a digital reading app. Our overall goal was to expand literacy access and use real-world data to select and individualize collections to best serve the needs of the district's highly diverse student population. A priority was to provide students with a seamless connection to the digital collections of the Lexington Public Library serving our local area. As was the case for most districts in the country, the pandemic precipitated an even greater push to offer digital content.
The platform we selected: OverDrive Education Sora reading app—aligns with our public library system for easy access to its wealth of digital materials. The solution also allowed us to facilitate the use of digital content at our own pace and within the availability of funds.
Below are some of the highlights of what we learned from tracking the data and the ways we applied that knowledge to improve access to literacy and help more students discover the joy of reading.
Serving diverse demographics, ensuring maximum investment impact
Our district, Fayette County Public Schools in Lexington, Kentucky, encompasses 70 schools and programs serving more than 41,000 students from backgrounds representing 95 native languages. We are a majority-minority district with approximately 6,600 English learners (EL) and 5,200 students classified for special education.
Our mission within the Office of Information and Analytics is to provide solutions that support more effective teaching and learning. When searching for our digital reading system, we found these features very beneficial.
- Align with our public library using a single platform. Both the district and the Lexington Public Library use digital libraries. Students can easily access the collections through their reading app. Readers don't even need their library card; They can use their school Google accounts to access our district and public libraries.
- Provide impactful data on students' reading habits. We can see valuable information both from the reading activity of the public library and from our own district collections. Tracking students' reading habits across collections gives us a more accurate and complete picture of their reading interests and behaviors.
- Maximize purchasing power for district-wide access. District-wide standardization with a reader app ensures ubiquitous access and maximizes the resources we can offer with every investment.
Since the launch of this platform, we have followed the data to create collections as well as advocate for reading resources.
Building the collection
To build and expand our collection, our technology team requests information from departments that have provided funding. We also work as a department to analyze data and make purchasing decisions. Our Library Advisory Board helps brainstorm content ideas, and we regularly share data with district librarians. Staying close to the data has helped the district boost both enthusiasm and proficiency in reading.
Creating excitement
Librarians and teachers regularly review usage statistics, such as books opened, time read, reading sessions, average time per session and per book, total unique users, and achievements earned. This data helps them track progress and make recommendations for titles of high interest or high educational value. With this information in hand, we can select individual, departmental, thematic, and other collections that we know will attract more students.
Expanding our community of readers
Giving students access to different types of digital content helps generate interest in reading. Our students can choose to read digital magazines, non-English content, Battle of the Books texts, and books from a wide variety of curated collections.
Usage statistics have lent credence to beliefs held by our educators that offering students independent reading options and privacy behind the computer screen increases interest and engagement. But data doesn't always support preconceived notions. For example, when tracking data on average time per book by format, we found that our students spent more time on audiobook texts than on e-books. That surprising discovery led us to increase funding for our audiobook collection. Without this data, we would have missed a golden opportunity to increase reading hours.
Equitable access
One of our department's main goals is to support equitable access to resources. The digital reading app helps us achieve that goal by removing traditional obstacles such as limited English fluency, school size, and staffing limitations. Today, by leveraging Sora's features and usage data, we are better equipped to offer titles in our students' native languages, give each reader access to a district-sized set of resources, and maintain a robust collection of specific books.
Use of data for promotion
Increasing funding to expand our audiobook collection is just one example of the many ways we use data for promotion. Collaborating departments can request specific data so they can see the impact of their efforts and advocate for continued support. Usage trends inform purchasing decisions; For example, we track the use of materials and content packages to calculate our return on investment and validate specific funding requests.
As evidenced by our success in making reading more accessible and relevant to students of all demographics, choosing this path was one of the best decisions we've made in our ongoing efforts to support reading in the classroom.
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