Overdrive Education Partners with TeachingBooks for Interactive Reading Pilot

OverDrive Education announced today that the Sora student reading app is piloting a new Sora Extra that connects students to interactive reading resources from TeachingBooks.net. This new feature provides easy access to engaging learning materials that can deepen conversations about favorite books among students, educators and families.

Educators can test the pilot Sora Extra and see the full depth of TeachingBooks’ catalog at Booth #2843 at the Future of Education Technology (FETC) conference in New Orleans from January 23-26.

The Full Digital Reading Experience

The Sora student reading app serves more than 59,000 schools worldwide with the industry’s best ebook and audiobook catalog and award-winning user experience. Sora Extras are content that complements popular and educational digital books and engages students in a variety of subjects.

This new Sora Extra connects digital books in Sora with TeachingBooks’ vast collection of games, video book trailers, read-along audiobook performances, meet-the-author interviews and more.

“Since OverDrive acquired TeachingBooks 12 months ago, our goal was always to build interactive reading enrichments easily accessible in Sora,” said Nick Glass, Founder and Head of TeachingBooks.

Limitless Reading Resources

“TeachingBooks becoming a Sora Extra is the first step in the journey toward impactful integrations and access within Sora. It brings readers directly to the TeachingBooks ‘For Fun’ collection of hundreds of thousands of resources that can engage, delight and bring to life thousands of children’s and young adult books.”

TeachingBooks has been creating and distributing resources about children’s and young adult books since 2001. Today, more than 55,000 schools and libraries have a license for this award-winning literacy service, including all students in California, Alabama, Texas and Wisconsin.

Among the resources instantly available to users of the new TeachingBooks Sora Extra are exclusive interactive games developed by TeachingBooks, including the Author Name Game, Word Searches about children’s and young adult books, and both Concentration and Jigsaw Puzzles that utilize book cover images.

What to Expect From the Pilot

Glass adds, “It is imperative that we find ways to empower all readers to feel connected to books they are reading. That is why TeachingBooks created interactive, title-specific games that not only are accessible for all ages and reading levels but honor readers’ cultural experiences, genres and other personal interests.”

The Sora Extra pilot is launching with a few dozen school districts selected from around the U.S. Once the free Sora Extra is enabled, students simply need to select the TeachingBooks icon to be authenticated into the TeachingBooks “For Fun” section.

Demonstrations of the new TeachingBooks Sora Extra will regularly occur regularly at the Sora booth throughout the FETC conference at Booth #2843. Attend presentations in the booth to hear educators from around the country share how they are implementing digital content and Sora to engage their students and staff:

• Simple Strategies to Get the Most Out of Sora Across Your School Library System (Rochester City School District, NY) – at 1:45pm CST
• A Beginner’s Guide to Marketing Your Digital Collection (Georgia Cyber Academy, GA) – at 2:45pm CST
• It Starts with Access: How School & Public Library Partnerships Boost Reading (Bourbonnais School District 53, IL) – at 3:45pm CST
• Keys to Send Student Reading Soaring with Sora (Auburn City School District, AL) – at 10:45am CST
• How Digital Books Help Reinvent Reading Personalization District-wide (Williamson County School District, TN) – at 11:45am CST
• For Every Reader: Using Digital Books to Foster DEI (Fulton County School District, GA) – at 2:45pm CST
• Get the Most Out of Sora with Behind-the-Screens Support (Brevard County School District, FL) – at 3:45pm CST
• Choice Matters: How One District Powers Student Reading with a Public Library Partnership (City Schools of Decatur, GA) – at 9:45am CST

OverDrive Education, a division of OverDrive, offers the largest catalog of ebooks, audiobooks, digital magazines and other content for over 59,000 K-12 schools and millions of students worldwide. The Sora student reading app, named one of TIME’s Best Inventions, provides every student with access to the right books and supports the need for required curriculum titles, class sets and pleasure reading. TeachingBooks.net (acquired in 2021) complements Sora with one of the largest catalogs of supplemental resources that “bring books to life.” Founded in 1986, OverDrive – which also provides digital content to public, academic and corporate libraries – is based in Cleveland, Ohio USA.

TeachingBooks is an engaging collection of resources that brings children’s and young adult’s books to life. With access to hundreds of thousands of materials including original author interviews, video book trailers, discussion questions, vocabulary lists, interactive games and more, 55,000 schools and libraries have received more than 70 million unique investigations since August 2020. Awarded the Best Digital App of 2020 by the American Association of School Librarians and the 2021 Common Sense Education Selection for Learning, TeachingBooks was founded in 2000 and is in Madison, Wisconsin USA. TeachingBooks was acquired by OverDrive in 2021.

Featured image: emojoez, iStock.