Founded in 2012, LightSail Education is committed to creating a world in which learners maximize their potential through literacy.
LightSail's comprehensive, standards-aligned, literacy platform with multimodal learning functionality, holistically assesses and nurtures each student on their reading and writing-to-learn journey, throughout elementary, middle, and high school.
LightSail’s instructional and administrative tools balance the administrator's and educator’s needs for ease-of-use, versatility, pedagogical rigor, and value with the student’s need for an engaging, motivational, content-rich and diverse literacy experience.
ADAPTIVE READER | FLUENCY BUILDER | STUDENT AUTHORED BOOKS | WRITING MODULES | PERSONALIZED READER | HOMEWORK | ENGLISH & SPANISH LEXILE ® ASSESSMENT |
Our browser based Reader adapts to each learner's current reading skills. Tackles challenges with supportive content recommendations and reading aides. | Assess, monitor and develop students' oral reading fluency. Running Record and rubric evaluation options. | Foster creativity and promote expression with student self-published stories. Publication audience extends from the class to the LightSail Universe. | Students engage in a comprehensive digital writing experience that supports planning, drafting, receiving feedback, and journaling. Styles of writing include book reports, essays, self-reflection, reader response, research papers, and creative writing. Students will experience that writing can be fun and academic! Writing Skills Builder will address learning gaps to develop more capable writers. | Customizable digital reading aids.
For struggling readers:
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Teachers choose from flexible onetime or repetitive assignments. Effortlessly track student engagement and completion. | Scientifically matches a student's reading skills with texts written at the student's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). |
Leading-edge educational technology assures enhanced and equitable personalization for students at all levels, while fostering the literacy meta-skills required to build engagement, confidence, and lay the foundation for life-long learners.
BOOKS | CONTENT BUILDER | DISTRICT LIBRARY | INTEGRATED VIDEO | BUY BOOKS |
6,000 complementary, Lexiled, authentic, high interest fiction and non fiction English. Spanish. High-Low titles. |
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Curate imported content and share with schools in district. | World class educational video clips scaffold understanding and escalate learning engagement. Action Clips bring illustrations and content to life. | Integrated ecommerce access to purchase an additional 150,000 popular trade titles. |
TEACHER DASHBOARD | HEATMAPS AND DIAGNOSTICS | INTELLIGENT ANALYTICS FOR GUIDED INSTRUCTION | DISTRICT DATA REPORTS | LMS INTEGRATION |
Track and support students in real-time in- class or at-home | Standards-aligned literacy skill diagnostics, rubrics, and running records | More than 150 data points measuring student and teacher engagement and progress | Transparent measures of ROI and literacy impact |
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A key challenge for literacy education in this decade is that blended learning must be fluid, with students and teachers transitioning seamlessly between home-based virtual learning, school campus-based learning, and hybrid learning scenarios where class cohorts are split between home and school.
LightSail leads the way with built-in modules and features that support these exact scenarios. Tools such as real-time monitoring of student reading activity and a chat functionality between teacher and student maximize engagement without leaving the platform or necessitating the use of other communication tools.
LightSail is intuitive to use and requires no training to get started on the journey to meet and exceed literacy goals.
Lexiled Content: Provides “Just Right” texts for BR-1400+ Lexile readers. Readability supports increased comprehension.
Fluency Builder: Supports traditional running record and customizable rubric assessment.
Cloze Assessment: Develops word recognition, eliminate/select word choices based on morphological knowledge, encourages an “ear” for how words sound in context.
MC/SRQ Assessments: Embedded checkpoints to target critical aspects of comprehension such as main idea, summary and supporting details.
Thoughts: Develop written expression and communication. Support active reading and interaction with the text. Monitor personal comprehension through inner conversation with text.
My Journal: Allows a student to decide which writing should be private or shared. Students can "free write" or engage with a text to record favorite quotes, passages, and text mark for key features such as main idea and supporting details.
Teacher Dashboard: Records real-time student data that promotes teacher-student collaboration. Raises student accountability by making their learning visible. Reveals student learning gaps that teachers can close with customizable and differentiated learning.
Informal Writing Bursts: Helps students learn that certain writing techniques are audience specific.
Personalized Reader: Provides 60+ customizations, students can add supportive features to enhance their reading experience to promote comprehension and fluency.
Video Library: Supports comprehension with academic audio and video clips that add interest and increase engagement.
Ecommerce: Connects you with 50 major publishers to provide students increased content choice from over 50,000 popular titles.
Homework: Introduces students to time management and self-monitoring. Homework can be assigned for a specific text to drive group instruction or promote free choice reading.
Student Authored Books: Help students develop a writing voice by fostering creative writing. Promotes the writing process including receiving effective feedback and offering feedback to peers.
Language Workshop: Develop expression in a low risk/no grade environment. Foster a love of language and critical thinking.
Writing Skill Builder: Grade leveled topics that measure student concept knowledge with interactive questions.
Book Reports: Establish the foundation for report writing by allowing students free choice or assigned book reports. Report writing is a fundamental "reading to learn" outcome.
Lexiled Content: Provides “Just Right” texts for BR-1400+ Lexile readers, acknowledging emphasis on relative ability. Addresses common content area topics to increase exposure to literacy.
Fluency Builder: Targets struggling readers with low fluency by providing feedback about their unique challenges. Builds a historic record of growth for documentation.
Cloze Assessment: Develops word recognition, eliminate/select word choices based on morphological knowledge, encourages an “ear” for how words sound in context.
MC/SRQ Assessments: Pinpoints where student cognition is weak. Promotes student self-advocacy for support and clarification.
My Journal: Allows a student to decide which writing should be private or shared. Students can write reflectively or academically. Engage with a text to explore author's style, story structures, and much more.
Teacher Dashboard: Records real-time student data that promotes teacher-student collaboration. Raises student accountability by making their learning visible. Reveals student learning gaps that teachers can close with customizable and differentiated learning.
Informal Writing Bursts: Develop online writing etiquette as students start to explore and participate in social media.
Personalized Reader: Provides 60+ customizations that allow students to exercise choice and self-advocacy in a learning environment. Acknowledges that students with varying relative abilities need and deserve differentiated support.
Video Library: Supports comprehension with academic audio and video clips that add interest and increase engagement.
Ecommerce: Fosters choice by giving students access to texts from 50+ genres.
Homework: Promotes time management, builds self-monitoring skills and offers clear.
Language Workshop: Experiment and refine knowledge of nuances such as prediction and inference without the stigma of “right” or “wrong.”
Writing Skill Builder: As a student’s relative ability is revealed, appropriately remediate, and challenge each student with focused, interactive lessons.
Essay Writing: Introduce students to essay writing in a structured and supportive way. Engage students in writing process practice- planning-edit! Promote choice and preference by giving "free choice" topics! With practice, students develop a writing voice.
Lexiled Content: Provides “Just Right” texts for BR-1400+ Lexile readers, acknowledging emphasis on relative ability. Literature and Informational texts content support skill development needed for benchmark assessments, career planning, and post- secondary study.
Cloze Assessment: Ensures that students have exposure to a growing print vocabulary.
MC/SRQ Assessments: Pinpoints where student cognition is weak. Promotes student self-advocacy for support and clarification.
My Journal: Allows a student to decide which writing should be private or shared. Students can use writing to propel self-awareness or to track a recursive theme in a text.
Teacher Dashboard: Records real-time student data that is parallel to student dashboard. Promotes data driven conversations related to goal setting, self-management, and literacy growth.
Student Dashboard: Exposes students to performance data that can be used to grow academic self-awareness.
Informal Writing Bursts: Writing can and should be fun. Writing isn't only for essays. These no-risk activities foster creativity.
Research Report: Teach students to differentiate valid v. unreliable sources, paraphrase, MLA/APA cite, and more!
Personalized Reader: Provides 60+ customizations that allow students to exercise choice and self-advocacy in a learning environment. Acknowledges that students with varying relative abilities need and deserve differentiated support.
Video Library: Supports comprehension with academic and video clips that add interest and increase engagement.
Ecommerce: Fosters choice by giving students access to texts from 50+ genres.
Homework: Reinforces preparation for full group or small group learning. Provides choices for independent reading. Exposes and supports students with time management.
Language Workshop: Revive a love of learning with exercises that promote refined, creative, and critical thinking.
Writing Skill Builder: Provides students a “deep dive” into leveled content to fill in learning gaps or extend knowledge due to curiosity and interest.
Essay Writing: Prepare students for post-secondary with the ability to write for various audiences, give/provide/utilize feedback, and incorporate nuances such as MLA/APA.
LS Standard | LS Core | STUDENTS | TEACHERS | ADMINISTRATORS | ||
Feature Group | Dynamic Content | |||||
Reading/ Library | 1,500 Books Per Student Antares ReadingTM and LightSail Classics | LightSail Classics and Antares ReadingTM short-form books in English and Spanish. Antares books are exquisitely illustrated to engage and support young readers and specifically designed to meet the needs of the classroom. The texts are Lexile® aligned, allowing for differentiation and automatic curation of a personalized library. The wide variety of topics capitalize on student interests. Unlimited copies included with each student subscription. | ||||
4,500 Books Per Student Leading Educational Publishers | High-interest, fiction and nonfiction, curriculum aligned, authentic texts from well-known publishing partners. This thoughtfully curated, rich, and diverse library from publishers trusted by educators and parents alike. The Library features engaging content serving the needs of a cross-section of learners at all Lexile levels from K-12. Unlimited copies included with each student subscription | |||||
Buy Books | Integrated ecommerce interface to purchase thousands of additional award-winning and popular titles from the world's leading publishers. Texts are equipped with thousands of standards aligned embedded assessments. Teachers can compile a book request list and teachers/administrators can fulfill these requests. Additional book choices support the curation of a personalized school/district library. | |||||
Thousands of High Quality Educational Video Clips Related and Integrated to Our Books | Build student engagement by adding educational videos to their portfolio. LightSail has connected its thousands of books with related videos thereby making it so much easier to find videos and books that match what the student is reading. | With our thousands of sharable videos, teachers can add them to assignments and homework to keep their students engaged. As a teacher, you can incentivise reading by setting a number of required reading minutes to unlock a video. | ||||
Thousands of High Quality Action Clips Related to Our Books | LightSail has embedded thousands of action clips (GIFs) to make each book come alive. As your students are reading, they will find embedded action clips to enhance the topic/subject. Imagine reading about cheetahs and seeing them sprint at 70 MPH. | Embedded action clips (GIFS) are the perfect way of adding a new dimension to your students' reading. Not only does an educator get to control which clips their students watch, they can embed existing clips to new books, import their own clips to embed in any book, and share them with fellow educators. | ||||
Content Builder and District Shared Library | Optional | Teachers, administrators, and curriculum leaders can import and curate content in any language from websites, Excel, Google Docs, PDFs and ePubs. Share imported content with educators across your district. Embed curriculum aligned questions then assign to students and actively progress monitor. | ||||
Library Collection | Sept | Students can enjoy reading and watching content that are seasonally based. Is it Thanksgiving? Your teachers can create a Thanksgiving collection that focus on the history and traditions of the holiday. | Share curated mini libraries with your classroom and fellow educators. Create seasonal collections that appear in your students' libraries. Includes assessments and essential questions. | Share mini curated library collections with your district and schools so teacher can use them with their learners. | ||
Targeted Writing Support | ||||||
Writing | Essay | Optional | Students are provided an opportunity to write formally for various modes/prompts. Exposes students to citations and other nuisances of academic writing. Students benefit from recursive writing and feedback. | Teachers expose students to the modes of writing in a structured, formal and academic format. Students are exposed to post-secondary writing norms codes of academic integrity. | ||
Book Report | Optional | Students are exposed to multiple modes of writing in a supportive and structured environment. They receive teacher and optional, peer feedback as they read for comprehension, respond to prompts, and practice summarizing. | Teachers are able to create unique prompts or use prompts from the LightSail Community. Student performance data can be used to address learning gaps and drive next steps in instruction. | Administrators are able to ensure that students are exposed to skills from the Writing Strand of standards and are receiving a holistic ELA experience. | ||
Research Report | Optional | Grow a student’s knowledge of a topic by promoting research. LightSail support the research process by using a K-W-L graphic organizer to drive inquiry based learning and research methods. | Empower your learners to grow their knowledge base with inquiry-driven research. Give students the skills and confidence to distill information and formally express it to an academic audience. | |||
Writing Skill Builder | Optional | Students address grade-level content through interactive and engaging questions. Many of these questions simulate high-stakes standardized tests. Practice in a low-risk environment raises confidence and exposure. | Teachers can address identified student learning gaps with this tool. Student performance data provides progress monitoring on the writing skill. | |||
Informal Writing Workshop | Optional | Students engage with grade-level appropriate language skills that drive success in reading and writing. | Teachers can differentiate a student's exposure to language skills that are necessary to fill in learning gaps and skill deficits. | |||
Student Authored Books | Optional | Students can publish their very own book right in the LightSail platform! Readers in their class, grade, school, district, or across the LightSail Universe can read their book in the LightSail library. | Push the boundaries of creativity, foster a love of writing, and enhance literacy pedagogy. | |||
My Journal | Optional | Students can select to keep a journal private or share it with the teacher/parent. Students can also create shared responses and include quotes from books. | Teachers promote active reading and a love of writing by offering journaling opportunities. Monitor student comprehension and reader response through written assignments. | |||
Multimedia | ||||||
Multimedia | Video Library | Optional | Academic videos serve for content extension and edu-tainment. | Teachers address different learning styles and differentiate the learning experience for their students. | ||
Action Clips | Optional | Students have exposure to brief soundless GIF video action clips that bring content to life! Promotes text engagement. | Support 21st century students with visual images that align to text. These are an opportunity to activate prior knowledge and/or build schema. | |||
Responsive, Engaging, and Supportive Platform | ||||||
LightSail | Patented LightSail Educational Ereader US Pat No.: 10.109.213 | Personalized and differentiated reading experience for each student. Adaptive library that ensures all students are always reading texts across different genres and within their individual Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). | ||||
Roster | Flexible Rostering Options | Flexible rostering options include: Self-Rostering, Google and Microsoft SSO, Clever, Class Link and GG4L. | ||||
Integration | Sept | Integration to Microsoft Teams and Google Classroom | ||||
Integration | LTI Certified | Sept | IMS Global Certified for interoperable communication with leading LMS Systems | |||
Monitoring & Reporting | Real-Time Monitoring Teacher-Dashboard | Using the Dashboard, teachers can actively monitor students' real-time activity including their reading minutes, cloze activity, and books being read. View students' progress towards reaching their weekly reading goals. | ||||
Reading History | Student Personal Literacy Portfolio | Easy-to-read performance dashboards and reading history portfolio to foster student self-awareness on personal literacy goals and progress. | ||||
Spanish Placement Test | Spanish Lexile® Assessment | Sept | Spanish Lexile Measures for Students. El Sistema Lexile® Para Leer. Assess each student's Lexile level in Spanish and LightSail's text recommendation engine adapts the student's Spanish literacy library to their "Just Right" level. | |||
SPED Tools | Personalized Reader | Optional | Developed to assist struggling readers access LightSail's rich texts. For students with ADHD, Dyslexia, Autism, visual impairment, Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI), LightSail has 60 different tools to customize the ereader and adapt it to each student's needs | |||
Observer | Parent Portal | Engage parents directly in student literacy growth and progress. Encourage family discussion of reading and reading interests. | ||||
Communication | Instant Messaging and Teacher-Student Chat | Teacher facilitated and controlled instant messaging. Students and teachers can communicate securely and instantly. Teacher has full control of communication without leaving the platform to use external messaging tools. (1) Private Chat: Student to Teacher (2) Class Chat: Send classroom announcements to the whole class with one message. Students can respond to class chat to show daily participation. Teachers can mute the class. Students can raise their hand to request permission to chat. (3) Group Chat: Teacher initiated conversations and conferences with small groups of students centered around specific books or topics. | ||||
Reporting | Extensive Reporting and Analytics - Actionable Student Insights | Robust reporting functionality that provides extensive data and insights of student progress across more than 150 metrics with customizable date ranges | ||||
Annotation | In-Text Annotation - Student and Teacher Thoughts | In-text annotation and feedback enable teachers and students to provide questions, feedback, and responses directly in books. All annotations can be associated with specific reading skills or curriculum standards. Students and teachers can annotate with text and voice. | Insert Professional Development annotation for teaching guides and educator notes. | |||
Gamification | Motivational Tools and Gamification | Student Leaderboard themed around reading minutes and badges that consistently reward students for reading and vocabulary achievements. | ||||
Competitions | Tournaments | In the spirit of competition, students can motivate one another to achieve | Competition is an element of classroom culture that teachers can harness to grow literacy and increase engagement. Formats include student-against-student and class-against-class. | Make literacy gains and foster school spirit. Format tournaments with school-againstschool for intra-district competition. | ||
Flexible Assignment Options | ||||||
Fluency | Fluency Builder | Optional | Help students develop their oral fluency, speaking, and listening skills by empowering the teacher to create read aloud assignments. Assignments give insight into each student's ability to decode, retell the story, and track their words per minute (WPM) rate. The recording archive promotes progress monitoring. Teachers score readaloud assignments using a digital running record and customizable fluency rubrics. | |||
Homework | Homework | Optional | Teachers can quickly create one-time or repetitive homework assignments to track students remote reading progress and engagment. |
LightSail’s Personalized Reader feature includes 60 different tools to customize the eReader and adapt it to each student's needs.
This functionality supports text access for children with ADHD, Dyslexia, Autism, visual impairments, or any child who struggles with reading and may have a wandering mind.Feature Highlights:
Every year, millions of people visit Egypt. Many go there just to see the amazing pyramids that the Egyptians built thousands of years ago. The pyramids are massive structures in the middle of the desert. The tallest one is almost 500 feet tall, and made of stone! But why did the Egyptians build these pyramids? What purpose did they serve? Pyramids were designed as burial tombs for Egyptian kings and pharaohs. The families could also be buried in the pyramids. The Egyptians believed that their kings were negotiators between gods and the people on Earth. This meant that kinds received the greatest respect from all of the Egyption people. Egyptians wanted to treat them well, even in death. Egyptians also believed in life after death. They wanted to make sure that kings were comfortable in the next life. That is why they made their kings into mummies to preserve their bodies after they died. They buried kings with gold and valuables. They wanted to make sure the kinds had everything they would need in the next life. A pyramid was the last part of the burial ritual for kings. The pyramids showed the importance of the kings. The first pyramid was built 4,500 years ago in Saqqara, Egypt. The first pyramids looked a little different from the ones that we know today. They were not smooth on the sides. They had steps going up all sides. The pyramids were built by stacking steps on top of each other. The pharaoh Sneferu created the style of pyramid that we see today. His pyramids were built with smooth sides all the way up. The smooth sides were important. They symbolized the rays of the sun. The Egyptians also believed that the smooth sides would allow the souls of the kings to ascend into heaven. Sneferu’s son, Khufu, built the Great Pyramid in Giza. It is the most famous of the pyramids. People still visit it today. For 4,000 years it was the tallest man-made structure in the world! Building the pyramids took a very long time. The Egyptians did not have construction equipment. They did not have electricity. The wheel had yet to be invented! The pyramids required a lot of workers. 20,000 men contributed to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza! The pyramid had 2.3 million limestone and granite blocks on the outside. Each one weighed over 2 tons! Inside, there were many chambers and passages. It was like a mansion. That is why construction of the Great Pyramid took over 20 years. Eventually, the Egyptian culture lost some of its wealth and power. As that happened, fewer and fewer pyramids were constructed. Today, the insides of the pyramids are mostly empty. Over the course of time, grave robbers took the valuables from the inside of the pyramids. The outsides of the pyramids are still intact. They are amazing to see. The pyramids are still some of the most impressive man-made structures in the history of the world. Maybe you will visit them someday!
Students were very positive about LightSail:
17 Low-Performing Middle Schools
LEXILE GROWTH VS. DAILY READING MINUTES NYC DOE