Basics Instructions for Educators
Welcome to LevelUp Reader! Here, you’ll find everything you need to know to get started. More than just a digital library, LevelUp Reader provides teachers with the tools they need to foster growth—and a love of reading—in young learners. Optimized for classroom use, small-group instruction, and individualized practice, the flexibility of LevelUp Reader saves educators time.
This page will explain everything you need to know about its features and functionality, from understanding how it differentiates reading instruction to knowing how to assign books, find lesson plans, manage your class, and track growth.
Before you get started, our quick start guide provides all the essential information you need to begin using LevelUp Reader. Click here to download the Quick Start Guide as a shareable PDF.
Navigating LevelUp Reader as a Teacher
When logging in to LevelUp Reader, teachers are shown their bookshelf, which serves as the site’s homepage.
No matter which part of the site you are on, the primary navigation buttons—Bookshelf, My Collection, My Classroom, Reports, and LevelUp Land—are displayed near the top. When you are on the bookshelf, this navigation panel also contains the search bar.
In the upper-right corner, the icon containing your initial gives you the option to log out of LevelUp Reader.
Bookshelf
The LevelUp Reader library contains more than 2,400 authentic fiction and nonfiction texts, including more than 650 Spanish and bilingual titles.
Books are organized in carousels. Some carousels are based on subject matter, such as Read About Animals and Read About Family and Friends. Other carousels are based on your actions and reading habits, such as Assigned to Students. The Interactive Phonics Books carousel collects a full program of 110 interactive eBooks teaching phonemic/phonological awareness and phonics, while the Running Records carousel includes 46 brief, interactive text passages designed to monitor students’ reading fluency.
You can customize the bookshelf for your classroom, including rearranging the carousels, hiding carousels that don’t pertain to your students, specifying the Lexile range of the books that appear, and more. See Bookshelf Settings for more information.
Click a book cover to view information about and resources for that book. The Resources tab contains lesson plans, instructional guides, worksheets, and graphic organizers. Depending on which version of a book you are viewing, these resources are offered in English or Spanish. Books are available to download and print in full-size, double-sided, or “minibook” sizes. You can track how students engage with the book in the Student Interaction table at the bottom of the Resources tab.
The Assign To tab allows you to assign the book to a student or reading group. You can set a Display Date (when the book will appear as an assignment on the student’s bookshelf) and a Due Date.
Preview Quiz shows the brief quiz that students will see upon completing the book. You can toggle quiz answers on and off—for example, if you want to project the quiz to students in class.
Click Save to My Collection to favorite a book. Click it a second time to add a tag or remove the book from your collection.
Search for books by typing in the search box at the top of your bookshelf. Filter your search by category, language, fiction/nonfiction, Lexile text measure, and, under More Filters…, audio length and page count.
You can also filter by comprehension skill or ELA standard under More Filters…. These options filter the skills/standards that are aligned to each book quiz. If you select Point of View, search results will only display books that assess that skill in their quizzes. The standards filter lists your state, province, or territory-specific ELA standards, allowing you to find quizzes that specifically assess individual standards.
You can customize how search functions for your students, including disabling search and filters altogether, specifying whether all matches or only books in the Lexile range for a student or students appear, and more. See Bookshelf Settings for more information.
On the bookshelf or in search results, click the clipboard icon under a book cover to quickly assign the book. Click the plus sign icon to add the book to My Collection.
My Collection
Books from your shelf can be saved to My Collection. Here, you can organize titles you may want to use in the future.
Create custom tags to apply to each book. Tag books to sort them by lesson, project, or assignment so they can be easily assigned to students later. Or, tag them to simply organize by subject or Lexile measure. You can apply multiple tags to each book.
You can filter My Collection by clicking one or more of the tags listed on the left side of the page. Hover over a tag and click the pencil icon to rename or delete a tag.
My Classroom
My Classroom is your student hub in LevelUp Reader. Here, you can monitor your students’ progress and book assignments, grade quizzes, set up groups of students based on reading level, control access to LevelUp Land, customize the bookshelf, and manage reading level assessments.
The articles that follow describe each of the My Classroom pages: Roster, Assignments, Inbox, Reading Groups, Gaming, Bookshelf Settings, and Lexile Assessments.
Roster
Your roster lists all students in your class along with their current Lexile reading measures. The roster allows you to control settings for each student. Adjust Quiz Frequency to limit how often students are given a comprehension quiz—from every time they complete a book to never. You can also toggle constructed response items on or off. Toggling constructed response items to “off” prevents students from having to write short answer responses and teachers from having to grade them.
In the upper-right corner of your roster, the Print Login Badges button allows you to generate and print QR (quick response) badges for your students. This lets students log in to LevelUp Reader by scanning their badge instead of remembering a username and password.
Assignments
The assignments table allows you to manage every book you have assigned to students. You can sort this list by student, by book, or by date.
Select the Current Assignments tab to view assignments not yet completed by students. In the upper right, you can filter this list by selecting only assigned or overdue books. The table allows you to adjust the Display Date and Due Date of each assignment. You can also remove an assignment entirely by clicking Unassign at the far right of the table.
Select the Completed Assignments tab to view assignments already finished by students. In the upper right, you can filter this list by selecting only assignments that were completed late or only assignments that were completed on time. Note that any books that were assigned without a due date will always be considered completed on time.
Inbox
Your inbox contains students’ written answers to constructed response items and audio recordings of their running record assessments.
All quizzes contain 5 to 10 multiple-choice items. Quizzes for books above 330L also contain a constructed response, or short answer, item. Unlike multiple-choice quiz items—which are automatically graded by LevelUp Reader—constructed response items and running records are manually graded by teachers.
When a student completes a constructed response or running record assessment, it appears in the Inbox under Items Ready to Grade. Click Grade Response or Grade Running Record to see the student’s answers. The Grade Response page provides guidance text so that you don’t have to read the book in order to grade the student’s response. Select whether the student’s answer meets or doesn’t meet the comprehension skills and ELA standards listed.
In addition to a student’s running record audio recording, the Running Record grading page shows the text passage he or she read, along with any related images. See “Viewing Running Record Results” for complete details on viewing and grading running records.
After you grade a constructed response item or running record, it appears in your Inbox under the Items Graded tab.
Reading Groups
Reading groups are a convenient way to organize students in your class. You can create, name, and edit reading groups from this page. Each student may appear in more than one group.
Reading groups offer efficiency and flexibility in assigning books and in analyzing data. When you assign a book, you can assign it to a reading group rather than selecting individual students. And in Reports, you can filter data by reading group to understand how usage and performance differ between subsets of students.
Gaming
On the Gaming page, you can control access to LevelUp Land. You can turn off access for each student. Or, you can limit the time each student can spend in LevelUp Land during class hours, from 5 minutes to 1 hour.
Class hours can be adjusted using the menu in the upper-right corner. Time limits are only applied during class hours. This is intended to keep students focused during the school day. Students can spend an unlimited amount of time in LevelUp Land outside of class hours, however.
Bookshelf Settings
Bookshelf Settings allows you to adjust which books appear on students’ bookshelves based on language preferences, Lexile range, search criteria, and book carousels (or rows).
The leftmost column lists each student in your classroom, with their Lexile measures below their names. If a “–” appears instead of a Lexile measure, that student hasn’t completed an intake assessment. If “N/A” appears, Lexile assessments have been disabled for the student. See Lexile Assessments for more information on assessment settings.
You can edit bookshelf settings for individual students, or select the checkboxes next to multiple students’ names to change the settings in a single action.
The Language column shows which languages of books appear on students’ bookshelves. The options are English (the default setting), Spanish, and bilingual. Click the current setting for a student or students to add or delete books based on their language:
The Bookshelf Range column displays the targeted Lexile reading range for each student, with a default of 100L below to 50L above the students’ current Lexile measures. You can adjust this range manually by clicking the range for a student and adjusting the values in the “below” and “above” fields that appear:
The bookshelf range for students whose intake and progress monitoring assessments have been disabled is preset based on their grade level. For example, PreK students with no Lexile measure are shown books in the BR100L to 0L range, since BR (Beginning Reader) books are most suitable for them.
For students whose intake and monitoring assessments are enabled, LevelUp Reader automatically adjusts the books on their bookshelves with each change to their Lexile measure.
Search, Search Filters, and Search Results list the search settings for a student. Search is on by default, but if for any reason you’d prefer a student not to be able to search for books, click the current setting in the column to toggle the Search feature off.
You can also toggle the basic search filters on or off (they’re off by default) to enable students to narrow search results by category, language, or fiction/nonfiction. Finally, you can specify whether to return all search results regardless of a student’s Lexile range (the default) or limit the results to only show books in the student’s bookshelf range:
The last column, Bookshelf Rows, allows you to change which book carousels (rows) appear for students, and rearrange the rows that currently appear. LevelUp Reader bookshelf carousels are organized based on topic or user activity.
Click the current setting to see a list of the available rows, all of which are enabled by default. To disable a row, deselect the checkbox next to its name. To move a row up or down in the list—and subsequently on the bookshelf—hover over its name and click the up-arrow or down-arrow that appears to the right:
Lexile Assessments
The left-most column lists each student in your classroom. You can edit assessment settings for individual students or select the checkboxes next to multiple students’ names to change the settings in a single action.
The Lexile column lists the student’s current Lexile measure. If a “–” appears instead of a Lexile measure, that student hasn’t completed an intake assessment. If “N/A” appears, Lexile assessments have been disabled for the student (see below for more information).
Click “Intake/progress monitoring” in the Assessments On/Off column to enable or disable a student’s Lexile assessments. When you disable assessments, a message appears notifying you that doing so will result in the student not receiving intake or progress monitoring assessments. LevelUp Reader will no longer track the student’s reading level progress or suggest books in a targeted range based on his or her individual Lexile measure:
A confirmation message appears when you disable assessments. You can re-enable intake and progress monitoring assessments for a student at any time. Any previous Lexile progress data is preserved by LevelUp Reader and remains available in Reports even when assessments are disabled. When assessments have been re-enabled, LevelUp Reader determines whether a student has read enough to warrant a new progress monitoring assessment, so there is no need for the teacher to trigger an assessment in such instances.
Note that wherever user Lexile measures are shown on LevelUp Reader, “N/A” appears for a student whose assessments have been disabled. Examples are included in the Roster, in Reports, and on the page for assigning a book.
The Date of Last Assessment column lists when a student completed his or her latest assessment, if applicable. If a student has not completed an assessment in a long time, it may be because the student has not read enough on LevelUp Reader to meet the criteria for receiving an assessment. Or, it may mean that a student has been assigned an assessment but has not yet completed it.
The two options under the ••• button in the last column let you force a new progress monitoring or intake assessment for a student:
Manually triggering a progress monitoring assessment is rarely necessary. LevelUp Reader automatically assesses students when they meet certain criteria—specifically, if two weeks have passed since their last assessment, and enough reading has been done to justify an assessment. Manually triggering a new intake assessment for a student is also rarely necessary or advised, since doing so will completely overwrite the student’s existing Lexile measure and impact the data that appears in Reports.