With school breaks approaching in many parts of the world, it’s crucial that students continue to practice their reading skills independently. Standalone Reading Coach, now generally available, offers an excellent solution for maintaining reading fluency during these periods. Whether at school or home, students can engage in personalized, AI-powered reading practice that keeps them motivated and on track.
Learners can discover the joy of reading and improve their literacy skills, whether practicing challenging words or co-creating stories with responsible AI. With support for multiple languages, reading streak rewards, and the ability to track progress over time, Reading Coach is designed to help learners get the most out of independent reading practice. Your students can keep up with their reading skills and stay on track, even during breaks, with Reading Coach.
What is Reading Coach?
Reading Coach is a free, standalone Learning Accelerator that builds reading fluency through personalized reading practice to engage learners of all abilities. As students read aloud, it offers real-time feedback on pronunciation, syllabification accuracy, and reading progress. Independent practice allows learners to focus on building skills at their own pace.
Reading Coach empowers students by providing instant feedback and access to inclusive tools. Learners can choose from three engaging reading modes:
- Create a story: Pick a character, setting, and reading level to generate a chaptered story where learners choose what comes next.
- Read a passage: Explore over 110-leveled passages from ReadWorks—either fiction or non-fiction.
- Add your own passage: Students can read custom passages from an educator, a favorite article, or even a story they wrote themselves.
It’s easy to bring Reading Coach to your school through zero-touch deployment with Microsoft 365 Education. It can also be used by learners with any personal Microsoft account to practice on their own at home.
An inclusive tool for multiple languages
Extensive language support makes Reading Coach a valuable tool for enhancing language development. Its user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) are now available in 81 different languages. And, Reading Coach supports 14 different English dialects, aligning real-time coaching to regional variations in pronunciation and usage.
Learners can create AI-generated stories in 14 different languages with consistent coaching and practice activities in each language. This helps ensure learners receive personalized, encouraging feedback privately on their device.
This personalized approach has shown to be effective. For example, in Ha Tran’s fifth grade classrooms at THCS Hải Vân in Vietnam, 150 multilingual learner of English (MLE) students with limited exposure to English speakers have shown remarkable improvement in their English language skills. After using Reading Coach for three months, the students have gained confidence in their abilities. They have even created videos to teach their peers how to use the tool!
The enthusiasm for Reading Coach is evident as the students not only use it in the classroom but also at home. Their love for the tool showcases their dedication and the effectiveness of Reading Coach in enhancing their learning experience.
Similarly, Kimberly Niebauer’s third graders at Loretto Elementary in Florida, US, no longer see reading as a chore. One student gained two reading levels after using Reading Coach alongside other interventions, and another MLE student improved their reading proficiency by two years since starting to use the tool. Additionally, the students love Immersive Reader in Reading Coach because it enables them to personalize their reading practice.
The benefits extend beyond English learners—educators can also use Reading Coach to support foreign language learners. Reading Coach helps students build fluency when learning a new language. Since its coaching isn’t language dependent, learners receive guidance to improve their fluency in Reading Coach’s supported languages.
Engaging practice keeps readers interested and excited
Reading Coach is designed to support independent reading practice, making it an ideal tool to use throughout the school year and during school breaks. By providing real-time feedback and personalized tips, it helps learners improve their reading skills at their own pace. The new ability to track progress over various time periods ensures that students remain engaged and continue to build their reading fluency.
To keep learners motivated, Reading Coach offers encouragement through digital badges and rewards. Readers can now earn streak badges for completing three, five, and seven days of reading. They can also unlock new characters and story settings for every 20 minutes they spend reading. Rewards can be used in AI-generated stories or even traded with friends, gamifying the reading experience and inspiring curiosity for what comes next.
Student-centered solutions
Explore Microsoft 365 EducationAs readers progress, Reading Coach displays their growth in a dashboard that they can easily understand. They’ll see information on reading time, accuracy rate, and mispronunciations, as well as goals to reach the next achievement.
Learners can also track their growth over a week, a 30-day period, and all-time with summary statistics:
- Total reading days and time
- Stories started and completed
- Average accuracy and words per minute
- Badges earned and characters unlocked
By highlighting what learners have accomplished, Reading Coach encourages consistent practice and further reading even during school breaks or when students are at home.
Get started with Reading Coach
Keep up with reading practice and maintain proficiency with Reading Coach. It’s easy to find, access, and use:
- Visit coach.microsoft.com, find the app in Microsoft 365, or download the Reading Coach Windows app.
- Sign in with your school-issued credentials (Microsoft Entra ID) or any personal Microsoft account.
- Select “Get started” to begin.
Reading Coach helps build fluency skills with personalized, AI-powered reading practice. Get started with Reading Coach and make the most of independent reading practice!
