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.

How does your innovation work in practice?

CommonLit operates a free online reading program for 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 2,000 texts. All texts include passage-dependent questions and scaffolded, tech-enhanced tools to support struggling students. They 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.

Third party external research has confirmed that increased use of CommonLit was positively associated with student year-over-year growth on a state assessment in the United States. Students in low-income schools made even greater grains. The report also showed that more students with disabilities and learning difficulties increased their scores over the academic year.

How has it been spreading?

CommonLit currently serves over 20 million teachers and students around the globe. The majority of those users are in the US, where our efforts have been focused since 2016. Our US teachers and students span across 72% of public and charter schools, 70% of which serve low-income students. Within the last year, CommonLit has grown its international users by 3.5x, reaching nearly one million teachers and students, and we expect to continue growing exponentially.

Much of our international work is focused in Latin America, where we have forged relationships with several ministries of education. Since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, more than 900,000 student devices in Perú and Colombia have been preloaded with CommonLit content.

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

Any teacher or parent can sign up for a free CommonLit account at www.commonlit.org or www.commonlit.org/es.

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