Getting started

This page gets you from nothing to a student reading a story. It takes about ten minutes: log in, add your students, and hand out their usernames. Everything else on this page is what to expect once they start.

Here are a few words you will see on this page. Critical Reading Journeys (CRJ) is a reading program for the advanced readers in your classroom. A student logs in, reads a story, and talks about it with a Reading Buddy, the conversation partner on the screen that asks the student questions about the story. When the student finishes, you get a report, a one-page summary of how the student handled the story, and a transcript, the full conversation between the student and the Reading Buddy. A grade band is the set of 36 stories for one grade level, and it is the one choice you make for each student.

Log in

Go to readingjourneys.com and click Log in. The link is at the top of the page. Enter the username and password we sent you and click Log in.

You land on your student list. This is your home base. Every student you add appears here, with the grade band you chose, and an Open button that takes you to that student’s reports.

Add your students

Click Add student, the purple button at the top right of the student list. A short form opens. Fill in the student’s first name, last name, a username, a password, and a grade, then click Submit. The student appears in your list and can log in right away.

Keep usernames simple. First name plus last initial works well (sarahm). Students type these themselves, so avoid anything they would have to spell carefully.

Write down every password before you click Submit. The app never shows a password again. If a student forgets one, you can set a new one: from the student list, click Open next to the student’s name, then the Edit Student Account tab, type a new password in the password box, and click Save changes. The student signs in with the new password from then on, and nothing else about the account changes. You can change a username the same way.

Choosing the grade is choosing the stories. The grade you pick in the form is the student’s grade band. The next section explains how to choose it.

Choose a grade band

Start with the student’s own grade. The stories in each grade band are already written above that grade’s reading level, because they are meant for advanced readers. An advanced fourth grader belongs in the grade 4 stories to begin with. The form says the same thing under the grade menu: choose the grade whose stories will stretch this student, not the grade on the roster.

Move up only when you already know. If you know a student reads two or more years ahead, start a band higher. Otherwise, start at grade level and look at the first report. Page 3, Your first four weeks, tells you what to look for.

You can move a student up or down at any time, and the student is not told. From the student list, click Open next to the student’s name, then the Edit Student Account tab, choose a new grade, and click Save changes. Nothing on the student’s side mentions a grade, so a change is invisible to the student and to the rest of the class.

Make the change between stories. The next story the student starts comes from the new grade band. A story the student is partway through can still be finished, because it stays on the Resume Reading card on the student’s home page, but it does not count toward the new band’s 36. On your side, the reports from the old band drop out of view while the student is in the new band, because your view of a student always shows the current band’s stories. Nothing is deleted, and if you ever move the student back, those reports return.

Placement is not a one-time decision. After each story you have a report, and the report tells you whether the band is right. Most students stay where they started, and moving the ones who should move takes a minute.

What your students see

The first time a student logs in, they pick a Reading Buddy. There are four: Gus, a friendly and supportive coach; Scout, a curious and playful explorer; Sage, a thoughtful and wise guide; and Spark, an enthusiastic and energizing friend. The choice is about personality, not difficulty. All four ask the same kind of questions and hold the student to the same standard.

Then the student sees their home page. It has three parts. A card at the top says Start Reading or Resume Reading for the current story. Below it, the reading list shows all 36 stories in the student’s grade band, marked completed, in progress, or not started. Only the next story opens; the rest wait their turn. On the right, a list of achievements marks 1, 5, 10, 20, and 30 finished stories.

A story opens with a preview. The student clicks Start reading and sees the title, the first line, a short overview, and one question to think about while reading. Clicking Start reading again opens the story.

The reading page puts the story on the left and the conversation on the right. The Reading Buddy opens by asking the student to read the story and click I’m ready! when they have finished. The student reads at their own pace and can scroll back to the story at any point in the conversation.

The conversation begins when the student clicks I’m ready!. The Reading Buddy asks its first question, and a small map with four stops appears above the conversation: Get the Story, Dig In, Weigh It, and Make It Yours. The Buddy moves the student from one stop to the next, and a check mark appears on each stop as the student clears it. Page 4, The four phases, explains what happens at each stop.

Students can type their answers or say them. A microphone button sits beside Send. A student who clicks it can talk instead of type.

Students know from the start that you will read what they write. Two short lines sit at the top of the conversation. The first is a tip that changes from story to story, such as not to worry about spelling. The second tells the student that this is thinking practice, not a test, and that their teacher can read the conversation to see how their thinking grows.

Tap a word for a definition. If a student taps any word in the story, a short card appears under that paragraph with the word and one plain sentence explaining what it means in this story. Tapping anywhere else closes it.

A student can stop partway through and come back. The student just logs out. The next time they log in, the home page says Resume Reading, and the conversation picks up where it left off.

Devices and your network

CRJ works on laptops, Chromebooks, and tablets. It does not work on phones yet. A student who opens it on a phone sees a page that says it is best experienced on a bigger screen. Nothing needs to be installed; CRJ runs in the web browser.

Headphones are not needed. The Reading Buddy writes; it does not speak. If students will answer by talking rather than typing, the device needs a microphone, which every Chromebook, laptop, and tablet has built in.

Before the first session, have one student log in on a school device, at school. The most common first-week problem has nothing to do with reading: a district web filter that blocks the site. If the page will not load at school, ask your technology office to allow readingjourneys.com. Finding this out on a quiet afternoon is much better than finding it out with six students waiting.

Try a story yourself. Go to readingjourneys.com/demo and work through the sample story with a Reading Buddy. No login is needed. It takes about fifteen minutes, and it is the best way to know what your students are about to see. The demo story will look hard for a third grader. That is on purpose: the stories are written to be read with the Reading Buddy, whose questions send the student back to the text, not to be read cold.

Where to go next

Page 2, Fitting CRJ into your week, helps you decide when your students will do their stories. Page 3, Your first four weeks, is a plan for the first month, one focus per week.