The science

Rally was built on a deep foundation of research. Thousands of studies document the benefits of reading and methods to maximize a reader’s potential. Below you’ll find research highlights that are core to Rally’s design.

Real-time feedback

To make notable progress, students need real-time reading feedback and support from adults - something that’s not always possible in the moment. Rally Reader helps fill the gap by listening to students read aloud, stepping in when words get tricky, celebrating successes, and providing practice for challenging words; the same way a real-life coach would.

Instead of independent silent reading, the NRP (NICHD, 2000) concluded that teachers should provide opportunities for students to read aloud with some guidance and feedback.

Jan Hasbrouck, 2006

For Students Who Are Not Yet Fluent: Silent Reading Is Not the Best Use of Classroom Time

Student choice

Studies show that students are more excited about building reading skills when they choose what to read. Rally’s collection spans more than 50,000 popular titles, with new releases every month. We have full catalog partnerships with all the major publishers, including Penguin Random House, Hachette, Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, Scholastic, and Disney.

When students select and read many stories and informative texts, they will make improvements in vocabulary, writing, motivation, reading identity, speaking, listening, spelling, grammar, and of course, reading abilities.

Bamford & Day, 2004; Cirocki, 2009; Day et.al, 2011; Grabe & Stoller, 2022; Iwahori, 2008; Nation, 2009; Lake, 2014

Motivation and engagement

If students are motivated, they will read more. If they read more, they’ll become stronger in fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary. Rally recognizes this effort and motivates students to continue reading by offering badges, streaks, achievements, and rewards to celebrate their progress.

Highly motivated students who see reading as a desirable activity will initiate and sustain their engagement in reading and thus become better readers.

Linda B. Gambrell, 2011

The Reading Teacher: Seven Rules of Engagement

Progress tracking

To remain on grade level, students must increase their reading speed each year. Schools often use WCPM (words correct per minute) as a critical measure of student progress monitoring. To help with this, Rally provides data-rich reports to teachers that include information on words correct per minute, minutes read, words read, accuracy, persistence, challenging vocabulary, and more.

Research has demonstrated that when teachers use student progress monitoring, students learn more, teacher decision making improves, and students become more aware of their own performance.

Nancy Safer and Steve Fleishman, 2005

Research Matters: How Student Progress Monitoring Improves Instruction

The science of Rally Reader

Rally Reader helps students build stronger reading skills by providing real-time fluency feedback, empowering them to choose their own books, motivating them with badges and streaks, providing rich data to their teachers and families, and more. Want to learn more about the research behind developing Rally Reader?

Line graph showing PISA Reading Literacy Scores in relation to reading engagement levels. Three lines representing low, medium, and high reading engagement ascend from left to right, with high engagement correlating with the highest literacy scores, peaking at 583, which is above the international average indicated by a label on the right.

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