Congratulations! You’ve discovered our newest “teacher guided practice” features for Microsoft’s AI Reading Coach, aimed at making it easier for educators to support learners, and for learners to engage in consistent, independent practice.
What do I need to get started?
This new set of Reading Coach features requires School Entra ID accounts, and for educators and learners to belong to the same Microsoft 365 tenant.
Enabling preview features for the first time
For educators
One-Time unlock process
1. Log into Reading Coach with your educator School account.
2. Right-click or long press the Coach (Sunny, the sun, by default). You will see a new box appear that encourages you to "Find out more."
3. Select “Find out more," which will take you to a page with Terms of Use and an optional invitation to join our Reading Coach feedback community on Teams.
4. Read and accept the Terms of Use, and select Agree to Terms of use if you agree. If you’re interested in joining our community to help shape Reading Coach with feedback, you can do that here as well! When you’re ready, selecting the button to agree will unlock the new “Teacher mode” in Reading Coach.
5. Now, you’re ready to create your first practice! Return to student view at any time using the toggle at the top.
Help your learners enable preview
Learners enable preview by joining their first practice via join code or link, provided by their educator. You must have a practice ready to share before they can join.
1. Have learners log into Reading Coach with their learner Entra ID accounts.
With a practice join code
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Have the learner right-click or long press on the Coach (Sunny, the sun, by default) and select “Find out more”
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Have the learner enter the join code for the practice and select “join”
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The new practice will show up in a new “My practices” tab in Reading Coach!
With a practice join link
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Share the practice join link with your learners. They may be prompted to log into Reading Coach.
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A page will appear with a join code auto-populated. Have the learner select “join”
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The new practice will show up in a new “My practices” tab in Reading Coach!
What if I want to stop using preview?
These features will be enabled by default once they become generally available later this year, but it will always be under your control whether students can access practices you've created. To stop using preview features:
1. Delete each practice that you have created. This will remove those practices for your learners as well.
2. Switch back to "Student" mode using the toggle at the top to stop seeing teacher features.
Create and share a new practice
We designed this process to be as simple and lightweight as possible. If it’s not, let us know!
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From the Teacher mode homepage, select New to start creating a new practice.
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Enter a Title and a Due date for the practice, and select the Practice type:
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Open reading is for fully independent practice: you select a reading time goal, and learners who enroll in this practice can watch their progress towards that goal before the deadline.
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Single passage is for when you want to pick what learners read: you can create your own passage for this, or select one from our ReadWorks library. Learners “complete” this practice by reading what has been shared with them at least once.
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3. When your practice is ready to share, you can pick between a join code and a join link. A few things to note:
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If your learners haven’t enabled preview yet, a practice join link will enable preview automatically. If they want to join with a code, they’ll need to complete the one-time step of right-clicking or long-pressing on the Coach to enter the join code there.
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Join codes and links will expire once the practice deadline has passed.
Monitor learner progress
There are two views for you to explore to see how learners are doing on their practices:
Practice view: Selecting any practice from the Teacher homepage will show you a list of who has enrolled in the practice, and some basic details of how they’re doing:
For open reading practice, you’ll see:
Learner progress toward the time goal
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How many passages learners have completed during that time
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Each learner’s average correct reading words per minute
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Each learner’s average reading accuracy
For single passage practice, you’ll see:
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How much of the passage each learner has read
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Each learner’s average correct reading words per minute (across attempts)
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Each learner’s average reading accuracy (across attempts)
Learner view: Selecting any learner from within Practice view will show you how they’ve done on practices assigned by you in the past. Note that you will not see data from activity not related to practices assigned by you.
Enabling preview for the first time
With a practice join code
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Right-click or long press on the Coach (Sunny, the sun, by default) and select “Find out more”
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A new window should appear. Enter the join code for the practice and select “join”
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The new practice will show up in a new “My practices” tab in Reading Coach!
With a practice join link
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Click the link shared by your teacher. You may be prompted to log into Reading Coach.
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A page will appear with a join code auto-populated. Select “join”
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The new practice will show up in a new “My practices” tab in Reading Coach!
What data can my teacher see?
When you join a practice shared by your teacher, that teacher will be able to see some details about your progress.
For open reading (time-based) practice
Sometimes, a practice will come with a time goal. This means you can read anything you want, and between the time that you enroll in the practice and the final due date, your teacher will be able to see:
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Your progress toward the time goal (or if you have surpassed it!)
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How many passages you read during that time
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Your average correct reading words per minute
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Your average reading accuracy
For single passage practices
A practice might also come with a passage attached. To complete this reading practice, you’ll have to read the specific passage that your teacher shared. You can read it as many times as you’d like before the deadline, and your teacher will be able to see:
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How much of the passage you have read
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Your average correct reading words per minute (across attempts)
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Your average reading accuracy (across attempts)
Across practices
Just like you can see in your “My progress” tab, your teacher can see your average reading data across practices. This might look a bit different for them because they only see your reading activity from teacher guided practices, not from all the time.
Here is a screen that Almana’s teacher will see. This information helps her teacher celebrate her progress and help her better when she sees her in class.
