Learning List Blog

Purchasing instructional materials is the single largest annual purchase a school district typically makes. To put it in context: school districts spend more on instructional materials annually than you paid for your house. A purchase that large certainly merits careful due diligence. Before we purchase a house, we engage a realtor and spend weeks even months visiting multiple houses on the market. We compare the features of each house against our mental list of "must haves"

Would your students benefit from a digital program with cross-curricular content to support literacy development? Take a look at Learning List’s review of McGraw Hill’s Achieve3000 Literacy. Achieve3000 Literacy is a fully digital, supplemental literacy program for grades 2-12. Students work through language arts, science, and social studies content to develop reading skills and comprehension. The program is adaptive and intends to provide reading content and practice of lit

Are you searching for instructional materials to support foundational skills instruction? Take a look at Learning List’s review of Sadlier’s From Phonics to Reading. Sadlier’s From Phonics to Reading is a comprehensive phonics program, intended to supplement literacy instruction in Grades K-3. The core instructional material consists of teacher and student books, available in print or eBook format, and additional digital materials provided on the program platform.

If you have perceived an increase in state control over the adoption of instructional materials, you are not alone. This blog explains the reason for the shift away from districts' control over the selection and use of instructional materials. In a recent EdWeek article, education leaders who shaped the standards movement argue “that states should be doing more ‘quality control’ when it comes to instructional materials—signaling which are high-quality and incentivizing and

Over the last three years, yours, like most districts, likely scrambled to meet students’ needs in lots of new ways. The district may have purchased new materials to support at-home learning. Teachers may have subscribed to online resources individually.  And, since students returned to school, intervention, and tutoring resources have likely been purchased. When you analyze the current list of materials in your district, do you have an abundance of instructional materials?

When purchasing supplemental materials, how much weight should you give to the alignment percentage? In this blog, we explore the differences between comprehensive and supplemental materials when it comes to assessing alignment. Educators in every district are working hard this year to close students' Covid-19-related learning gaps. Consequently, many campuses and districts are selecting supplemental materials. This blog discusses important differences between supplemental a

Like Consumer Reports®, Learning List is a private company, independent from publishers and free from political influence. States and other review entities rate and rank materials with the goal of identifying "the best" materials for districts to use. We do not. We calculate an alignment percentage, but we do not rank or rate the materials we review. We provide our subscribing districts with access to easy-to-read, evidence-based reviews of thousands of widely-used PreK-12 in

In the first two blogs in this series, we offered guidance for planning an instructional materials adoption and customizing a rubric to reflect your district's priorities. Generally, districts would use that information when selecting core materials. Supplemental materials are most commonly selected at the campus level, and campus leaders typically rely on word of mouth (Wang et. al., 2019) when it comes to selecting new instructional materials.

This is the second blog in the series about effective strategies for reviewing and selecting instructional materials. Our first blog discussed planning a successful adoption, which included distributing and aggregating the results of a needs assessment. Now it is time to develop a rubric for the adoption. Developing a rubric from scratch can be daunting. More often, educators look for existing rubrics to customize. This blog provides guidance for creating or customizing a rub

If your district or campus will be adopting new materials this year, someone in your campus or district is probably starting to plan the adoption process. Over the last decade, Learning List has assisted hundreds of districts, both formally and informally, with instructional materials adoptions. Based on research regarding selecting and implementing high-quality instructional materials and our own observations of local adoption processes, we offer a four-part blog series on e

Are materials as poorly aligned as teachers perceive? Learning List has reviewed the alignment of over 3,300 widely used PreK-12 instructional materials. Our subject matter experts review the citations (e.g., lessons, activities, assessments) listed in the publisher's correlation for alignment to the content, context and cognitive rigor of each standard. We find that core materials are generally aligned to most (though not all) of the standards; the alignment of supplemental

Does your district need math materials to support critical thinking in math? Take a look at Learning List’s review of Accelerate Learning’s STEMscopes Math. Accelerate Learning’s STEMscopes Mathis a comprehensive mathematics program for grades K-Algebra I. Learning List recently reviewed the content for grades 6-Algebra I for Common Core State Standards. The materials are digital, with the option of printing PDF documents for most program components.

The Learning List is a free, public directory of more than 10,000 K-12 instructional materials (and counting!) for the courses districts offer. We aggregated titles from state and district adoption lists, our database of reviewed materials, and publishers' catalogs. The titles are organized by subject, course, and grade band. Within each grade band, the materials we have reviewed are listed first; the remaining materials are listed in alphabetical order.

Selecting instructional materials that align with campus or district goals for instruction support quality instruction and learning. Next time you are selecting instructional materials, consider reviewing the material’s questions adding as an indicator of quality.

What is the principal's role in selecting and implementing materials? The RAND Corporation's study titled, School Leader's Role in Selecting and Supporting Teachers' Use of Instructional Materials, answers that question. The study explored how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted school leaders' perception of materials' quality, as well as their role in selecting and implementing instructional materials. The study was based on qualitative, semi-structured interviews with 39

Imagine Language and Literacy is an adaptive digital program designed to accelerate students’ reading and language proficiency. Learning List recently reviewed the content for grades K-5. The material intends to supplement core literacy instruction by providing lessons and practice in reading, writing, listening, and speaking.

Whether you are reviewing the alignment of a material before you purchase it or are planning instruction with a material you already own, the publisher's correlation can be an invaluable resource. The correlation identifies which standards the material has attempted to address and directs teachers to specific content in the material that addresses those standards.

Does your district need supplemental math materials to support students in K-8? Take a look at Learning List’s review of Imagine Learning’s Imagine Math. Imagine Learning’s Imagine Math is an adaptive digital program designed to supplement core mathematics instruction for grades PreK-Geometry. Learning List recently reviewed the content for grades PreK-8. The program for focuses on helping students understand how math functions in the real world and developing foundational

Teacher shortages often lead to merged classrooms and teacher reassignments. Teachers who are newly assigned to teach a grade level and course may lack expertise in the subject area, in the standards, and sometimes even in pedagogy. For such teachers, their instructional materials become a critical safety net for themselves and for their students. However, if the materials are not high quality, if they are not aligned to state standards, or if they are not easy to use, they m

Does your district need math instructional materials that develop critical thinking skills? Learning List has just reviewed the quality, alignment and technology compatibility of Accelerate Learning’s STEMscopes Math. This blog post shares a few highlights from our reviewer's review.