Website booksthatgrow.com | Registration Free | |
Type of site Online education, Interactive children's books, Digital library, Startup company Slogan(s) "One book, many reading levels, all students" | ||
Books That Grow is an online educational platform that offers digital books that adapt to readers' abilities. Using this learning management system, two people reading the same title may see entirely different words, sequences of ideas, or illustrations, depending upon their individual learning profile. The application focuses specifically on the needs of adults with low literacy, a population under-served by leading publishers. Subscription is free, and the site seeks to help users become better readers, allow educators measure students' abilities and track their progress. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, but incorporated in Delaware.
Contents
History
Books That Grow was founded by Daniel Fountenberry, a former teacher, and Jason Buhle, a cognitive neuroscientist. A Kickstarter campaign was launched in January, 2014, to accelerate funding for Books that Grow. The project's Kickstarter page reports on June 11, 2015: "353 backers pledged $20,559 to help bring this project to life."
As of June 2015, Books That Grow offers 137 tailored e-books, with titles in several genres categorized as biographies, classic fiction, folktales, primary source documents, science, and social studies.
Adoption
As of June 2015, Books That Grow is being used in over 1,000 schools across the United States.
Awards
For its efforts in developing an accessible online educational platform, Books That Grow received the 2014 Verizon Powerful Answers Award in Education as well as the 2014 National School Board Association's Innovation Showcase.
Reviews
On February 11, 2014, EdTech Digest featured Books That Grow in "Cool Tools", stating: "It's already making somewhat of a splash in the publishing world and is now just setting up to make its way into classrooms across the country." The article specifically noted Books That Grow's progress on Kickstarter and coverage on MSNBC and CNN.
On April 7, 2015, ClassTechTips highly recommended Books That Grow, writing:
"The best part about Books to Grow is that every book can be read at 3-5 different levels of text complexity. Teachers can differentiate instruction by allowing them to assign the same reading to a class of mixed ability students, while permitting these students to learn at their own level, and make steady gains in their reading skills. Teachers can also create classrooms in the app, monitor the books their students read, and adjust their set reading levels by book or by student."