The Iowa Reading Research Center has created the following apps and tools to help bring evidence-based practices to students’ literacy learning. These tools align with ongoing research projects at the center as part of the IRRC’s mission to bridge the gap between theory and practice in Iowa classrooms.
While many of these tools are intended for educators, caregivers of K–12 students looking to support handwriting practice at home may be interested in the LIFTER and CLIFTER applications.
Handwriting With LIFTER
Literacy LIFTER (Letter Identification and Formation for Transcription and Early Reading) provides users with evidence-based materials to teach handwriting and letter knowledge (i.e., letter names and sounds) to pre-kindergarten and elementary-aged students. This includes materials for flexible and efficient instruction in English and Spanish, such as video models of letter formation and letter pronunciation as well as downloadable PDFs of student worksheets.
Cursive Handwriting With CLIFTER
CLIFTER (Cursive Letter Identification and Formation for Transcription and Early Reading) provides instruction and practice for forming individual letters and for spelling words. Like LIFTER, this application includes materials such as video models of letter and word formation as well as downloadable student worksheets.
Measure FIRST
Measure FIRST (Fidelity of Implementation in Reading Skills Teaching) supports data-based decision-making by providing school administrators and instructional coaches a way to measure fidelity of intervention, including a free eLearning module and application to create custom fidelity checklists.
This includes MOTR-Cycle, a fidelity form that allows classroom observers to track the frequency, pace, and modality of opportunities to respond (OTRs) provided by teachers during instruction.
Educator Letter Builder
The Educator Letter Builder is designed to help educators communicate with caregivers about students’ universal screening results. Intended to supplement educators’ primary communication, this tool allows educators to generate a customized letter to a student’s family to provide information, context, and further resources about a student’s assessment data.
FastBridge Recommendations Tool
The intent of this tool is to help recommend next steps for K-6 teachers whose students score below benchmark on their FastBridge earlyReading or CBMreading screening assessment.
Tier 1.5 Calculator
The Tier 1.5 calculator allows MTSS staff to calculate the median score for each class within a school and identify classes that are not responsive to Tier 1 and could benefit from a Tier 1.5 intervention.
This tool is part of the IRRC’s Core DBDM (Core Data-Based Decision-Making) project intended to help MTSS teams use universal screening data to evaluate core instruction and identify the need for alterations to instruction.
Studying the Science of Reading: Practice Assessment
The “Studying the Science of Reading: Practice Assessment” is a free online resource for pre-service and in-service teachers looking to build their knowledge of the science of reading. The practice assessment contains nine quizzes on critical concepts pertaining to the science of reading. The feedback provided by the practice assessment highlights which areas of knowledge teachers are proficient in and which areas they could benefit from further learning in.