No student gets better at reading by accident. It happens rep by rep, one passage, one quiz, one small correction at a time. That’s the idea we keep coming back to, and it’s the thinking behind this update too: practice makes progress.
ReadTheory’s Free plan is changing, and this is one of those updates where “changing” means “getting significantly better.” Here’s a walkthrough of what’s new, what stays the same, and how the updated Free plan works for a teacher trying personalized learning for the first time.
Log in and explore — see everything now included on your Free plan. Compare plans — Free, School Champion, and School side by side
Why we’re making this change
When we started ReadTheory, the promise was simple: every student deserves to become a stronger reader, and that shouldn’t cost anything. That promise hasn’t changed.
We want every teacher on ReadTheory, whether their school has purchased a plan or not, to get real, lasting value out of the platform from the very first login. Reading growth shouldn’t be gated behind a subscription your school hasn’t signed off on yet, and it shouldn’t take a budget cycle to start making progress. So the core experience of reading, practicing, and growing is now the same for everyone. What’s reserved for paid plans are the tools built for coordinating across a whole school or district.
None of this comes from a vacuum, either. The best ideas we’ve ever shipped came from teachers, and this update is us listening and removing friction wherever we could find it.
The Free plan now includes…
No more ads. Anywhere.
ReadTheory is now completely ad-free, for every teacher, on every plan. No banner ads next to a student’s reading passage. No pop-ups competing for attention during independent reading time. Just reading.
Access to all progress reports to see where students stand.
Reporting used to have an asterisk on the Free plan. Teachers could see the basics, but ELA Curriculum Standards Reports and the new Benchmark Report were reserved for schools that had upgraded. That meant the teachers most likely to be flying solo, without a school-wide purchase behind them, had the least visibility into student growth.
The Free plan now includes every report we offer, with one exception: the new School-Wide Report, which is exclusive to the School plan because it’s built to pull data across an entire building. ELA Curriculum Standards Reports and the Benchmark Report are unlocked for every teacher, on every plan, at no cost.
All reports on the Free Plan show your students’ most recent 30 days of activity. That’s plenty to see what’s working right now and adjust week to week. If you want to see the full history of a student’s growth beyond that 30-day window, the School and Champion plans unlock it.
Content Catalog you can search and assign from
This is the change we’re most excited about, because it’s the one that changes how you actually plan.
Free plan teachers now have access to search and assign directly from the ReadTheory Content Catalog, something that was never available on Free before and is brand new to the platform. You can search by skill or by topic and find exactly what your students need next. Working on inference? Search it. Want something tied to what your class is studying in social studies this week, like ancient Egypt or the water cycle? Search it. Instead of waiting for the right passage to come up next in a student’s reading path, you can go get it, and build an assignment around what’s actually happening in your classroom that day.The free plan has 3-5 passages available for each grade band, Champion and School Plans unlock the full expansive catalog.
Printable or digital. Your call.
Not every reading moment happens on a screen, and the Content Catalog doesn’t assume it should. Worksheets can be printed just as easily as they can be assigned online.
That flexibility matters for the classrooms dealing with screen time limits, spotty device access, or simply a teacher who prefers pencils on some days. Same content, same standards behind it, your choice of format.
Recurring activities and competitions.
Alongside the Content Catalog, Free plan teachers now get full access to recurring activities and competitions, both of which used to be reserved for paid plans.
Recurring activities let you set up practice once and have it keep running, so consistent reps happen automatically instead of something you have to remember to reassign every week. Competitions bring a little friendly energy to that same practice rhythm, giving students a reason to show up and read today, not just because it’s assigned, but because they want to see where they land.
Growth doesn’t come from one big push. It comes from showing up, one passage and one quiz at a time, finding that sweet spot where practice feels challenging but not defeating. These tools exist to make that steady rhythm easier to start and easier to keep, and now every teacher has them, not just the ones on a paid plan.
So what are the limits of the Free plan?
The Free plan now supports up to 30 students, and four quizzes per student, per week, where we previously had no cap on this. Four quizzes a week, per student, is a real starting point, enough to build a routine and start seeing movement. Classrooms that practice on ReadTheory 5-7 times a week see up to 7.6x the reading growth of classrooms practicing less often. So if your students take to it and you want to build toward that kind of rhythm, School Champion and School Plans both remove the weekly cap so practice can scale with your classroom’s momentum.
We drew that boundary in this one place, so we could open everything else up: no ads, all report types, the Content Catalog, printing, recurring activities, and competitions, all with no restrictions. If you want to use the program with more than 30 students, or you’re chasing that 7.6x growth rate, School Champion gives one teacher room for up to 40, and the School Plan removes the ceiling entirely.
Who is the free plan for?
If you’re a teacher who’s curious about personalized learning but hasn’t fully committed, the Free plan is exactly where you should start. Sign up, bring in your class or a group of students, and use the Content Catalog, real reporting, and recurring practice to see what personalized learning actually looks like with your own students before you decide whether to go further. That’s what Free is built for now: not a stripped-down preview, but a genuine way to test the idea with a real classroom or group of students and see the progress for yourself.
What’s reserved for School Champion and School?
School Champion is built for a single teacher who’s ready to go further: room for up to 40 students, priority support, full report history beyond 30 days, and unlimited access to content, essentially everything in the School plan, scoped to one classroom. It doesn’t include the pieces that only make sense at a school-wide level: tech integrations, Data Privacy Agreements (DPAs), the School-Wide Reports, team management, and a dedicated customer success manager.
School Plans cover everything, and can flex to fit a group of teachers, a grade level, a department, or an entire school or district. There’s no cap on students or quizzes, so every student can keep practicing toward their growth goals. It’s built for the school and district level, with tech integrations, Data Privacy Agreements (DPAs), School-Wide Reports, team management, and a dedicated customer success manager.
And it’s priced with real school budgets in mind. ReadTheory is significantly more affordable than traditional programs and that affordability isn’t an accident. ReadTheory was built by an educator, not a publisher, and our mission has always been access for every learner.
Questions?
If you have questions about how these changes affect your account, reach out to our support team support@readtheory.org or visit readtheory.org/pricing for the latest plan details. And if you haven’t logged in recently, now’s a good time. The reports, the Content Catalog, and the activities are already waiting for you. Here’s to a year of steady practice and real progress, for every student, in every classroom.
