When looking for an adaptive reading program, the two most well-known choices teachers turn to are Freckle and ReadTheory. While the platforms have many similarities, they have key differences in their approach to improving reading skills.
After taking a look at this brief visual summary, we’ll walk through the pros and cons of each platform below!
| ReadTheory | Freckle | |
| Continuously Adaptive | ✅ | ✅ |
| On-Demand Diagnostics | ✅ | x |
| Auto-Assigned Differentiation | ✅ | ✅ |
| Real-time feedback for students | ✅ | ✅ |
| Real-time Reporting | ✅ | ✅ |
| Holiday Themed Content | ✅ | x |
| Printable Workbooks | ✅ | x |
| Cost | $ | $$ |
| ESSER Approved | ✅ | ✅ |
1. Content Focus
Freckle: Provides adaptive practice tailored to individual student needs for K-12 students across various subjects, including ELA, math, social studies, and science.
ReadTheory: Provides adaptive practice tailored to students needs to improve reading comprehension skills for K-12 and ELLS, including adult learners.
2. Features
Freckle: Offers adaptive practice in multiple subjects with interactive lessons, assignments, and assessments. The learning experience is differentiated, and teachers can access data on the teacher dashboard.
ReadTheory: Offers adaptive reading practice tailored to each student’s proficiency level and interests. The program is differentiated and automatically adjusted based on continuous student performance, ensuring the right level of both challenge and support. The detailed dashboards provide real time feedback that helps both students and teachers to address areas for improvement.
3. Engagement Elements
Freckle: Offers virtual badges and points to motivate students as part of its gamification aspect. These rewards encourage continued participation on the platform.
ReadTheory: Incorporates gamification elements such as virtual badges and a unique Knowledge Points system to motivate students and foster a fun learning environment. ReadTheory is also known for holding nationwide and international competitions with tangible prizes such as gift cards and pizza parties.
4. Pricing
Freckle: Known as “Freckle Free,” the basic version includes a limited database of practice questions and limited access to the teacher dashboard. The paid subscription plan gives users access to advanced reporting and customization options.
ReadTheory: The free version provides students with a wide range of personalized reading passages and comprehension quizzes tailored to their individual reading levels and interests. It also offers progress dashboards and immediate student feedback features. The premium version includes more customization options and analytics for schools and districts
5. Integration
Freckle: Seamlessly integrates with Google Classroom and Clever, streamlining the assignment and grading process for teachers as they can easily synchronize student rosters.
ReadTheory: Seamlessly integrates with learning management systems such as Google Classroom, Clever, and Microsoft.
Both ReadTheory and Freckle offer valuable resources for teachers aiming to enhance student reading comprehension skills using adaptive technology. ReadTheory excels in specializing in personalized reading practice tailored to individual student needs, while Freckle offers other subjects in addition to reading comprehension. After exploring the distinct features of each platform, it’s clear that they are capable of optimizing student engagement and academic growth and may even be used together during a school year. We hope that you are now ready to choose a platform that’s right for improving your students’ reading comprehension skills!
