CLEVELAND – June 29, 2021 – With schools facing the challenge of unfinished learning due to the pandemic, one state is proving itself a pioneer. The Delaware Department of Education (DDOE) announced an agreement with OverDrive Education to provide access to online books to every K-12 student in the state. Students use their school credentials to read required and recreational digital books in the Sora student reading app. Students will also have seamless access to age-appropriate popular ebooks and audiobooks from the Delaware Libraries’ digital collection as a result of the new partnership with the DDOE.
The DDOE invested federal Education Stabilization Funds (ESF) to provide students with access to educational and popular digital books that will be available to 221 schools and their 144,000 students. This “ Delaware Accelerate Learning” digital collection is available for students to borrow and read on any device inside the classroom, at home and anywhere 24/7. Sora is a popular reading app used by millions of students in over 48,000 schools around the world.
“We are excited all public school students in Delaware will have the opportunity this summer to immerse themselves in literacy,” Secretary of Education Susan Bunting said.
The Delaware Accelerate Learning digital book collection is a unique program that firmly secures the DDOE’s position as a national leader in education. Despite a disrupted year in the classroom, the DDOE focused on shifting the narrative from learning loss to unfinished teaching and learning, and from remediation to acceleration to promote action grounded in a growth mindset. As such, the DDOE committed to ensuring all Delaware public schools’ students and staff can access resources to support learning acceleration. The DDOE also partnered with community based organizations to encourage use of the OverDrive Education reading activities throughout the summer and extended learning. Regardless of where students are, they are receiving high-quality educational services and opportunities to learn, 24/7.
Digital books and on-demand digital class sets in the Delaware Accelerate Learning digital collection were selected from identified HQIM (high quality instructional materials) curricula. This collection features high-quality curriculum titles adopted by each of Delaware’s districts and charters, plus a digital collection of popular ebooks and audiobooks. Curriculum titles include Llama Llama Time to Share, The Snowy Day, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, Esperanza Rising, The Lightning Thief, Patient Zero and The Omnivore’s Dilemma among others. Popular titles for choice pleasure reading include Smile, The Crossover, Miles Morales, New Kid, The Baby-Sitters Club series, Pete the Cat series, One of Us Is Lying, I Survived series, A Scarf for Keiko, Concrete Rose and more. In addition, the collection features ebooks and audiobooks in languages other than English, including translated books and authentic texts from native speakers.
In addition, the DDOE and Delaware Libraries’ partnership allows Delaware students to borrow from both the Delaware Accelerate Learning’s collection of classroom and pleasure reading titles as well as Delaware Public Libraries’ titles. Sora will automatically filter content to only include age-appropriate titles depending on each student’s grade level.
Sora is one of the leading student reading apps in the market because of its extensive catalog of titles and ease-of-use. Data from thousands of schools using Sora shows students of all ages read more. Sora gives students flexibility to read in a way that works for them and includes customizable features such as dyslexic font, in-app translation and more. Sora incentivizes reading with fun avatars and achievements within the app and provides seamless access to the local public library in most markets.
For more information about Delaware Accelerated Learning, visit https://company.overdrive.com/k-12-schools/discover-sora/deschools/.
About OverDrive Education – a division of OverDrive
OverDrive Education offers the industry’s largest catalog of ebooks, audiobooks and streaming video for 48,000 K-12 schools worldwide. The company’s student reading app, Sora, helps schools embrace the future of reading, providing 24/7 access to books and powerful learning tools and insights to meet the needs of students and educators. Sora was named one of TIME’s Best Inventions of 2019. Founded in 1986, OverDrive – the leading digital reading platform for libraries – and OverDrive Education are based in Cleveland, Ohio USA. www.overdrive.com/schools
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