Imagine Reading

Welcome to Imagine Reading at Home! You will find all of the information needed to get your child started on Imagine Reading in the tutorial below. For login information please use the "Getting Started with Imagine Learning" Guide or contact your student's teacher.

Imagine Reading is a program that allows students to work at their own pace to read grade level texts with built-in supports. Students choose articles that interest them (they cannot be assigned by design) and have the option of listening to the text, looking up unknown vocabulary words, and making notes. There are questions and activities all throughout the articles that parents/care givers can use to help keep students on-task. Each unit and article begins with a video that features engaging animations or students teaching students!

Imagine Reading will offer students many opportunities to grow as an independent reader. Unlike other programs, however, this program works best under the direct supervision of an adult who can help students make the best choices when selecting their units and articles.

One of our favorite features is the Annotation Tool. This means students can double click a word, just like with the dictionary feature, only this time they will choose "Highlight." This allows students to type their own notes to the side so that they can keep track of things they feel are important as they read. It can be a definition in their own words, a question they might have, or even a connection they may have made to other things they have read or know about. The possibilities are endless!

We recommend allowing students to work for a reasonable amount of time, such as 30-45 minutes, and then having them log out and take a break. All brains need a time to rest! Don't worry, however, they can pick up where they left off the next time they log in.

This is hard question to answer because it is dependent on the child you are working with. There needs to be a balance between each student learning how to read well independently and an adult partnering with them when they need encouragement. Below are some ideas that we recommend for any reading situation to help students feel more confident as they become stronger readers at home.

The purpose of the Focus Question for each unit is to get students thinking BEFORE they read, DURING their reading, and then to rethink their first answer AFTER they read all six articles. It is meant to tie all six articles together with a specific idea. Here's how you can talk about it:

At the beginning of a unit or throughout a unit, explore with your students their background knowledge relating to the Focus Question and expand their thinking beyond their immediate answers. Remember that the student’s background knowledge is something they already know before they read the article.

FICTION

• If you could sit down and talk with one character from the story who would it be and what would you talk about?
• What was the big problem in the story? How was it solved?
• What do you wonder more about because of what you read today?
• How does the author show you that the characters changed from the beginning to the end?

NON-FICTION/EXPOSITORY/INFORMATIONAL

• What is the main idea of this article?
• What evidence can you share that proves that is the true main idea?
• What words do you see that you don't know and want to look up?
• Why do you think the author wrote this article?
• What do you wonder more about because of what you read today?