Community reviews for LightSail

I strongly believe in this program. I love this program because it holds students accountable, it holds their interest by allowing them to choose books they like and at their personal level. I highly recommend LightSail to all teachers who teach

I love how it is easily accessible to children they are able to choose texts that interest them but are at their zone of proximal learning. Children love earning badges and it makes reading time extra fun. During lockdown Lightsail has been even more useful in getting learners to read every day and have access to thousands of books which would never have been possible with what they have assess to in their homes normally.

Overall this is a fantastic program to help students grow an incredible amount. I have had students grow 3 grade levels in their reading ability. Their vocabulary has increased and their ability to answer a prompt is amazing now. Grading the short answer is so incredibly easy for me since they give me suggested responses for all questions. Students have places to reflect, question, and discuss as well. It's a great program any way you slice it!

My students and I really enjoy this product. I think it gives the students a sense of responsibility in their own reading. They enjoy watching their lexile numbers go up. I think it allows every student to work on their level without feeling embarrassed. Also the idea of reading off an iPad is very appealing to students. I am still trying to learn how to incorporate it in class instructions. I find this to be difficult because they are reading different books. If you are looking to use one book for the whole class you must purchase the book for all students, which takes away from purchasing other books. Overall, I think it is a great program. I think the embedded questions help the students reflect on their reading and also help them work on their comprehension skills.

Lightsail is incredible. The library is vast, students are engaged, and the program gives me a ton of usable data to help support my students' reading growth. The questions are common core aligned and great practice, but do not interrupt the students' flow of reading too much - there is just the right amount of assessment. I highly recommend Lightsail to any teacher interested in inspiring a love of literature in his or her students!

LightSail is an excellent program and app because it meets several needs in my classroom: it monitors student reading behavior, it has them read in their independent lexile range, it offers high interest books within each range, and I can monitor what the students are doing during independent reading time. One of the best parts of the app is the fact that students are involved in tracking their own progress. Often, students will tell me their lexile level has changed and on occasion the color may have changed. My students' enthusiasm is infectious and the time they get to use the app is something they look forward to and anticipate. I have been using the app for over 4 months now. I believe the real understanding happens during the writing of the short responses. Even though I may not have read a particular book, the app has student responses and a rubric so I can easily grade the student responses. The responses give me a window into the deeper understanding a student should get when reading a high interest book. As an added benefit, LightSail created a sentence frame response sheet for narratives and informational texts to help students craft common core aligned responses to text. I have seen a remarkable growth in students using evidence from the text to support their thinking, one of the major shifts in common core language arts. One area I have not tried yet is using this app for small group work. I will be trying out small group with a set of 6 books toward the end of the school year, so I can be prepared next year. When I am working with my own small group, I don't have to worry about what the other 25 students are doing; I know they are engaged in reading because I can see their instant responses to all of the activities types in real time.

I rave about Lightsail wherever I go. This product has my students totally silent and engaged in their work. Plus, I have realtime data on which students are on-task and learning. Students can see their Lexile level at the top of their screen and get really excited when the number increases and they know they are growing! They love being able to choose any book they want to read.

I think this product is excellent. As one student told me, "you can't escape reading." He means that when a teacher says read for 15 minutes, many students will pretend to be reading. This program does not allow for that as the teacher can monitor the student in real time. I like that students can download the app for personal use at home. I am using the nonfiction text we read as a group as a springboard for our nonfiction writing unit and am excited to see how that goes. Given that the SBAC assessment requires students to type answers I like that they can begin learning to do this on a simpler keyboard. I have a few students whose reading level (but not comprehension ability) is so far below grade level that I wish they could listen to the whole story. Maybe this feature is there and I do not know how to access it. Also, the dictionary feature is way beyond the ability of my special ed students. They can't understand the definition. LOVE the program

Strongly recommend.

The incredible thing about Lightsail is the depth of data that it provides both teachers and students. All of the heavy data-collection work is done by Lightsail, freeing up teacher time to better assess student growth and really work with individuals on specific skills and weaknesses. It opens up endless possibilities for teacher-student time.