Ready, Set, Spark!
Spark Reading Newsletter | October 2023
Hello Spark teachers!
Welcome to a new school year and a new version of Spark Reading. In this issue of the Spark Reading newsletter, you’ll find tips, ideas, and news to help you use Spark 2.0 to achieve your reading goals—whether you’re logging in for the first time or the 100th time.
Let’s see what’s new in Spark 2.0!
Collections
Curate book collections to share with specific classes, groups, or individual students. Then, use your collections for everything from curriculum units and book clubs to extra support or engaging reluctant readers.
Tips to get started:
- Create collections by subjects such as Math and Science or curriculum units such as Weather and Simple Machines.
- Poll students on their interests, then create and share collections based on the topics that excite them.
Time-Savers and New Tools
We’ve added functionality to improve collaboration and save time and tools to support French classrooms.
Tips to get started:
- Add a co-teacher to your class so you can both use Spark when working with students.
- Import students into Spark from your Google Classroom for faster setup
- Display the Spark interface in French or English when working in French classrooms.
New For Students
Introduce students to the student view in Spark—it’s filled with functional (and fun) features.
Tips to get started:
- Let students know they can use the “From My Teacher” tab to find the books you’ve assigned.
- Use the Book tallies in the student’s view to motivate students to reach monthly and yearly reading goals. (Tallies count all the books students have read, including multiple reads.)
- Let students know they can use the same annotation tools as teachers when reading books to reinforce their learning.
