CommonLit

An edtech nonprofit operating a free digital reading program in English and Spanish.

CommonLit serves over 30 million teachers and students across the globe with a free, research-based digital platform for literacy instruction. Our interactive platform contains thousands of high-interest OER lessons in English and Spanish for students at various reading levels, and features a suite of accessibility tools for struggling readers and those with disabilities.

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Overview

Information on this page is provided by the innovator and has not been evaluated by HundrED.

Updated May 2023

Web presence

2013

Established

30M 2024

24

Countries

Teachers

Target group

A child's reading level is the single best predictor of life outcomes, which is why CommonLit is dedicated to closing the global literacy opportunity gap. In the next three years CommonLit is on track to close this gap by about a fifth.

About the innovation

Why did you create this innovation?

After her firsthand experience teaching in a low-income school with no books or resources for her students, Michelle Brown knew she needed to do something. Students in low-income schools are generally the last to obtain access to cutting-edge technology and high-quality instructional tools. Becoming frustrated with the lack of free resources for her students, she created CommonLit in 2013.

What does your innovation look like in practice?

CommonLit operates a free online reading program for students in grades 3-12, with reading lessons created by literacy experts and former educators. At CommonLit.org, teachers can access a free digital OER library of over 3,000 texts. All texts include passage-dependent questions and scaffolded, tech-enhanced tools to support struggling students. They can also monitor student progress through the Student Performance Dashboard, tracking whole class and individual student performance by standard to detect trends and areas of improvement and plan for future instruction.

Research has confirmed that students with higher usage of CommonLit’s digital program demonstrated significant academic growth. Reading 6 or more CommonLit lessons correlates with over 1.5 times the average expected growth! Among high school students, completing 11 or more CommonLit lessons revealed growth of 0.35 standard deviations! This is nearly 2x the impact of the typical high school intervention (0.19).

How has it been spreading?

CommonLit currently serves over 20 million students around the globe. Our international users increased 656% since the start of the pandemic, reaching nearly one million teachers and students. We expect to continue growing exponentially.

CommonLit is proven to accelerate student learning by up to 2x. We are on track in the next 3 years to accelerate learning for 13 million students globally, and become an 80% earned revenue self-sustainable nonprofit.

If I want to try it, what should I do?

Teachers and parents can sign up for a free CommonLit account in English at www.commonlit.org or in Spanish at www.commonlit.org/es.

To learn more about CommonLit and the professional development we offer teachers, please contact Agustina Moppett (agustina.moppett@commonlit.org).

Implementation steps

Create a free account

Teachers create a free account on CommonLit.org

Invite students to the platform

Teachers invite their students to the platform to create accounts. This can occur with a class code or with our Google Classroom/Canvas/Clever integrations.

Assign a lesson

Teachers can explore the platform for lessons in English or Spanish and filter by grade level, genre, theme, etc. Once they find the perfect lesson, they assign it to their students and students log in to the complete the lesson. Teachers can also choose to download each lesson as a PDF to use without internet connectivity.

Monitor progress

Once students have completed the lesson, teachers can monitor student progress through their Performance Dashboard. This data can be downloaded and shared with parents and students.