NEWS: May 16, 2024 – EarlyBird announces collaboration with Florida State University’s FCRR to bring a new, comprehensive literacy assessment & dyslexia screening tool to schools across the country.

 

“EarlyBird has been working with districts for years to prevent dyslexia through gameplay,” said Carla Small, CEO and Co-founder of EarlyBird Education. “When we created our program—based on the vision and research of neuroscientist Dr. Nadine Gaab—we transformed the assessment experience for children: they play a fun game, while educators get the information they need to refine instruction. Incorporating the Reach Every Reader assessment into EarlyBird allows us to offer school districts a program that’s the perfect balance of ready-to-use and research-informed.”

 

 

The most innovative assessment on the market

At EarlyBird, we’re always following the science. EarlyBird—already a trusted resource for identifying and preventing reading struggles like dyslexia in our earliest and emerging readers—is excited to announce a new collaboration with Florida State University’s Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) that will bring our school partners access to additional, evidence-driven content within the existing EarlyBird platform. 

The new content, designed using research from the Reach Every Reader project funded by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, applies a whole-child and evidence-driven approach to identifying kids at risk for not becoming proficient readers by third grade. The Reach Every Reader research reflects one of the broadest samplings to date—comparing reading skills across a diverse array of schools and students in states across the country. The result: content that is culturally relevant and scores that minimize biased classification along the lines of sex, race, ethnicity, and dual language learner status.

 

 

Reach Every Reader is a multi-disciplinary, multi-partner effort that includes the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the MIT Integrated Learning Initiative, Florida State University, and expert practitioners, students, and families across the US committed to developing effective solutions for readers and early literacy. 

 

Now, EarlyBird is the sole provider of this groundbreaking content, embedded within the same assessment and platform that students and educators already love.

 

What this means for partners already using EarlyBird

First and foremost: no disruptions to your EOY testing period! Additional new content will become available in fall 2024-25. We’re focused on embedding new content within the existing EarlyBird platform to improve your data collection while minimizing changes to implementation for you.

Licensing this content provides value to our school partners in a few key ways:

We’re unlocking new core areas within the science of reading

Compared to other screeners that provide obscure composite scores, we’ve always been trailblazers in prioritizing actionable data that is both comprehensive and specific. The new Reach Every Reader content allows us to expand into new domains: along with additional subtests and supplemental printable tests launching in fall 2024, we will now be able to surface information on Fluency, Reading Comprehension, and Encoding while keeping administration time low. 

Our screening and overall assessment results are even more resistant to bias

With new culturally relevant content and additional bias analysis that was conducted as part of FCRR’s research, educators and parents can have even more confidence around students’ assessment results.

All K-2 grade levels will now have BOY risk prediction

The new data allows us to provide critical BOY risk prediction for all K-2nd grade students in EarlyBird, giving you earlier identification for students who may be at-risk for word reading difficulties including dyslexia.

This allows us to move faster to add new grade levels without compromising on quality

Getting assessment right takes time, but we know the stakes are high. Licensing the Reach Every Reader content allows us to move faster to bring you third grade in time for the 2025-26 school year while maintaining a rigorous standard for validity and reliability.

Essentially: EarlyBird customers will get access to even more comprehensive, actionable data within the platform you are already familiar with.

 

 

“The data we are getting from EarlyBird is making a big difference in our teaching practice,” said Jacqueline Ward-Brew, an Assistant Principal in Far Rockaway, NY. “Before, we could identify students who were struggling to read on the domain level. Now, we can pinpoint specific skills within these domains and personalize instruction for each student with the EarlyBird Next Step resources as an added layer of support.”

 

Frequently asked questions

Q: How do we add on the Reach Every Reader assessment?

No action is required! The Reach Every Reader content will be embedded within the EarlyBird assessment. Students will still complete subtests with Pip and his animal friends and data will appear in the dashboard your educators are already familiar with. 

 

Q: Will there be an additional cost associated?

No! 

 

Q: What grades will have the Reach Every Reader content within their gameboards?

The Reach Every Reader research studied students in grades Kindergarten through 3rd Grade. EarlyBird will be layering in new content with a measured, intentional approach over the next two school years. This fall, Reach Every Reader content will be part of the 1st Grade and 2nd Grade gameboards, with planned additions in Kindergarten and 3rd grade coming in 2025-26.

PreK was not part of the Reach Every Reader project. 

 

Q: How will this impact our administration of EarlyBird?

Very minimally. Coupled with the exciting new rostering and SSO functionality launching for the 2024-25 school year, we’re prioritizing rich, actionable data without sacrificing classroom time.

If you were an early user of the 2nd Grade gameboard, you will notice no changes from your EOY administration. Beginning with BOY, the 1st Grade gameboard will include two new subtests: Expressive Vocabulary and Nonword Spelling. These will add roughly 5-10 minutes total to the overall assessment while providing valuable insight into critical phonics and oral language skills. View the full list of subtests by grade level here.

 

Q: Will other organizations now have access to our students’ data?

No. We do not share individual student data with external partners. Your data will remain private, as per your existing Data Privacy Agreement.

 

Ready to use EarlyBird for the 2024-25 school year?

EarlyBird is the most science-based early literacy assessment on the market—built to help school districts prevent dyslexia through gameplay.