It’s that time of year…paper brackets waved in the hallways, team ranks and mascots dominating the space between, and the inevitable “Pleaaaaase!” for the games to make an appearance during your classroom time.  March Madness has arrived.

And then that spunky teacher with the Cricut cuts out and assembles her fancy Tournament of Books bulletin board and her kids go wild with excitement.  But you’re more crypto than crafty.

We’ve got you.  Meet LightSail’s newest module – Tournaments.  And you can test drive it – along with the LightSail Education platform – this March with a reading competition like no other!  Just check out their Intro Video!

TOURNAMENT OF BOOKS REGISTRATION

Ease of registration is an understatement – all you need is an email address and your roster of students to get started.  Anyone can set up an account for their class or school, and SWISH!  You’ve got instant access to not only the incredible online reading tournaments, but also the over 10,000 books, audiobooks, and multimedia on  LightSail.

Once you’ve registered and rostered your students, you’re ready to set up your own March Madness reading challenge.  Are you grinning like you just saw a Lebron dunk?  You should be!

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And LightSail’s offering a 45-Day FREE TRIAL during this March Madness season.  Just click HERE to register your school now!

HOW DO I PRINT THE BRACKETS?

That’s easy – you don’t.  LightSail does it for you AND keeps track of everything – all within the LightSail platform.  You heard me right.  

Say goodbye to late-night rulers drawing tiny brackets, copy machines rolling out pieced worksheets, students toting around their reading logs – most of them waiting until the night before to fill it out and score their verification signature.  

LightSail handles it all. 

Calculators, spreadsheets, reading logs…let them LightSail those right up with the rest of the platform!  LightSail does all the heavy-lifting for you – from scoring to tabulations to real-time data.  

QUICK READING TOURNAMENT OF BOOKS SET-UP 

All you have to do is select the type of tournament of books you want to run – Student vs. Student or Class vs. Class, decide who’s competing, and choose a start date and time.

Then LightSail calculates the rest for you!  No calendars, no stress, no fuss.

You then pick either how long you want the rounds to last or an end date, and LightSail automatically creates an online bracket for you, auto-populating it with your registered students.

HOW DO I SCORE IT?

Again – you don’t have to!  LightSail does the heavy-lifting for you!

All you have to do is tell LightSail how you want it to be scored – by minutes, words, or pages read, and they keep track for you.  

BUT they go one step further.  LightSail offers tabulation by cloze score, where students must correctly answer embedded comprehension checks sprinkled throughout their books to earn points.  And if they answer incorrectly, they lose a point.

Did you say Lexile?  LightSail is known for its incredible ability to assess and track students’ reading skills growth by Lexile level, which assesses both fluency AND comprehension!  

This means persnickety-reader gets to read books within his own zone of proximal development – 200 points above and below his individual Lexile score. 

Talk about a game-changer.  LightSail scores it all, active in the parameters that you set for your students.

HOW DO I PICK BOOKS?

It just keeps getting better.  Students can read any content they want if you select that option, but – and here’s the slam dunk moment – teachers can also choose to restrict reading to certain genres and topics, or even a curated collection of books that aligns with their curriculum  

Studying WWII?  Select that as a genre, along with other related topics, and LightSail automatically generates a library for your students containing just-right books in this genre window.

Swimming underwater with sharks?  No problem!  Just select “Specific Content” and fast break into LightSail’s library, picking and choosing the EXACT books you want your students to use during the tournament.

No trips to the library.  No reserving those “back room” books months in advance.  No excuses.

Students can read in school or out of school, depending on the parameters you set!

IS THIS ONLY FOR MARCH?

NO!!!  The LightSail Tournament Module is the newest part of the incredible LightSail Literacy Platform, which means tournaments YEAR-ROUND.

And don’t just think monthly.  You can have a tournament of books in your class that lasts an hour, or a day, or a week, or the entire school year if you want!  The possibilities are endless!

SCHOOL VS. SCHOOL TOURNAMENTS

With District-Level access within LightSail, administrators can set up tournaments that span your entire county, school district, or school.  Create a 5th-grade Minutes-Read Tournament.  Put all the middle schoolers to the test for the month of March!  Revolutionize your Summer Reading Challenges with LightSail’s Tournament Module.

WILL MY STUDENTS EVEN LIKE THIS?

Are you kidding?  Let them watch this incredible promo video for tournaments, and they’ll be begging YOU to get them involved!

It’s time for a 21st-century upgrade to your March Madness Book Tournament.  Jump into a free trial with LightSail today!