Lexia is a website program designed to help kids with their English skills. This year, Lexia is required for all students at our school. The way Lexia is used can drastically effect the learning experience for some students.
Recently, LJ has begun requiring all 8th grade students to do 15 minutes of Lexia every English class. LJ also requires students to take a reading summative at the beginning of the year, to see what grade level students read at. This summative assessment is not linked to Lexia, which is very inefficient. If this summative assessment were linked to Lexia, it would be much more efficient, because then only one placement test would need to be taken instead of taking multiple and getting different results. This way, you are learning at the same level that you do Lexia at.
Some flaws in Lexia is the fact that it takes too long to read the questions, which has the potential to bore students. It would be better if Lexia had a setting to receive written instructions instead of verbal ones. This would help meet everyone’s needs by giving students a choice of how the instructions are given to them. This way, students will like Lexia slightly more. One of the English teachers at LJ agreed to give their thoughts on Lexia. The English teacher said that Lexia is a new experience for them this year. Despite receiving training on the program at the beginning of the year, it takes them some time to learn programs like this. They have primarily learned about it by observing students using it in class. It appears to be engaging with built-in games and challenges, and they believe students (secretly) enjoy it a little bit. They think they would enjoy it more if they could use it intermittently throughout the year or with students/classes who may benefit from it. However, there has been a request to dedicate 15 minutes of an 85-minute class to this new program, which takes up a significant amount of instructional time, especially considering they only see students every other day.
At our school, Lexia is used in a way that can be an obstacle for some students. Lexia, which is just one part of English class, has the opportunity to change the learning experience for students, but is not used to its full potential. What do you think?
