The post 3 Ways Adaptive Learning Supports Foundational Math and Reading for Elementary Students appeared first on Discovery Education.
]]>Every student deserves to feel seen, supported, and capable of success, but in today’s classrooms, that’s easier said than done. With wide-ranging skill levels across math and reading curriculum, learning gaps, and growing demands on teacher time, it’s hard to give every learner what they need, when they need it. That’s where interactive learning platforms with adaptive technology can play a vital role.
1. Adaptive Learning Solutions Fill Skill Gaps and Prevent Learning Loss
Learning is cumulative, and small skill gaps can become major roadblocks if left unaddressed. Adaptive programs can identify missed concepts early, sometimes before a teacher even sees them, and automatically provide targeted practice or revisit foundational concepts.
The How: Continuously Detect, Assess, and Target
Adaptive learning programs work behind the scenes to detect when a student is struggling. The programs don’t wait for formal, summative assessment to intervene. Instead, programs like DreamBox Math and DreamBox Reading use continuous formative assessments to analyze patterns like repeated errors, hesitation, and inefficient strategies. The programs then respond instantly to offer support the moment a student needs it, without disrupting a student’s learning momentum. At the same time, these programs capture student progress and provide data-rich reports that offer educators actionable insights, enabling them to differentiate instruction, target small-group work, and make informed decisions that deepen student learning.
Why it Matters
Catching learning gaps early keeps students on track and prevents them from falling behind. This proactive, just-in-time support is especially effective in addressing unfinished learning and avoiding costly remediation.
Fast Fact
2. Meet Students Where They Are Whether Behind or Ahead of Grade Level
Adaptive learning platforms don’t just deliver digital content. They respond in real time to how each student learns, creating personalized virtual learning experiences that boost confidence, fill knowledge gaps, and help every student grow, at their own pace, and in their own way.
The How: Track, Analyze, Adjust in Real Time
Adaptive programs track more than just right or wrong answers, they continuously analyze how students solve problelms, how long they take, and where they hesitate. Based on this data, programs like DreamBox Math and DreamBox Reading adjust instruction in real time, tailoring the content, pacing, and scaffolding in real time.
Why it Matters
Adaptive learning solutions help create the Zone of Proximal Development, the space where learning is most effective because it’s just beyond what a student can do independently, but still within reach.
Fast Fact
3. Adaptive Learning Builds Growth Mindset and Confidence
A growth mindset is essential for learning. Adaptive learning technology reinforces this by helping students connect effort with progress. As they receive feedback and independently overcome challenges, they gain confidence that their abilities can grow with practice.
The How: Encourage Exploration, Productive Struggle, and Independence
DreamBox Math and Reading lessons are designed to support agency and progress through independent exploration and productive struggle. This type of adaptive technology offers hints and scaffolds only when necessary, allowing students to learn and grow by trying things, making mistakes, and seeing what works. As students successfully solve problems on their own, they build confidence and become more willing to take on new challenges.
Why it Matters
Students who believe they can figure things out are more likely to stay engaged, take academic risks, and develop lifelong learning habits.In this space of productive struggle, students stay motivated and make progress, challenged by content that’s appropriately difficult, not too easy, and not overwhelming.
Fast Fact
Create Student-Centered Learning Environments with Adaptive Learning
Adaptivity isn’t just about technology. It’s about creating responsive, student-centered classrooms. By choosing adaptive learning tools like DreamBox Math and Reading, educators can support every learner, close skill gaps, and build the confidence students need to succeed, now and in the future.
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]]>For over 20 years, Discovery Education has empowered educators to inspire curiosity, build confidence, and accelerate learning. As education evolves—shaping how students learn, increasing demands on teachers, and adding complexity to classrooms—we have evolved too, continuously innovating to meet these changing needs. This year, we’re introducing updates designed to make teaching more effective, engaging, and personalized—ensuring educators have the support they need to create lasting, meaningful learning experiences. And while many of these updates support educators, others are designed for students, nurturing their natural curiosity and joy in learning.
With every advancement, improvement, and new offering we bring, one thing will remain constant: our commitment to being the most trusted learning partner, equipping educators and engaging students to succeed in a dynamic world. We’ve listened closely to students, teachers, school leaders, district administrators, and the broader educational community as they have shared their challenges, celebrations, and concerns, and these meaningful conversations have informed our work for the back-to-school season.
Innovative Tools to Enhance Teaching and Learning
Teachers tell us they spend countless hours on assessments, lesson planning, and differentiation. In fact, 94% of educators seek tools that give them time back to focus on students. We’re helping streamline these tasks with new enhancements in Experience, including:
Personalized Content Recommendations
There are thousands of amazing, standards-aligned resources in Experience. Now, finding the perfect resource for any lesson is even easier. Our new Curriculum Aligned Resources feature allows educators to quickly access handpicked content to enhance their core curriculum. Teachers can also get recommendations based on their unique profile and preferences to suggest relevant resources specifically curated for their classroom.
AI TeacherTool | Assess
Our new AI-powered assessment generator allows educators to create standards-aligned assessments in minutes. Teachers can easily customize by reading level, question type, and Bloom’s Taxonomy—all while leveraging Discovery Education’s trusted, cross-curricular resources.
Improved Integrations
With the new Google Add-on, Discovery Education Experience now integrates seamlessly with Google Classroom, making access to quality content easier and more efficient for educators and students. The new integration offers simplified assignments, more focused access for students, and time-saving workflows for lesson planning.
Enhancing Math Engagement and Support for Educators
Over 90% of teachers believe that personalized instruction can improve learning outcomes, such as test scores, learning retention, and academic performance. As educators work furiously to address declining math scores, we’re making sure they have the right support to differentiate math instruction and drive student outcomes.
Improved Accessibility
DreamBox Math lessons now integrate assistive technology, keyboard navigation, and multiple modalities to ensure all students can engage independently. Learn more about these updates HERE.
Enhanced Engagement
We are rolling out updates to some of the most popular lessons in DreamBox Math to make it easier for students to start, play, and complete lessons successfully. Students will find clearer, always-available instructions, updated scaffolding, enhanced visuals, easier interactivity, and added real-world context for mathematical concepts.
Refreshed Middle School Math Environment
We know that students will feel more engaged and excited about algebra readiness when they can work in an age-appropriate environment. The new middle school environment has a sleek new look and introduces an upgraded lesson chooser, making it easier for students to navigate assignments and personalized lessons. Check out the new middle school experience HERE.
Helpful Curriculum Guide
The new in-product interactive curriculum guide enables educators to explore and align lessons with state standards for targeted instruction. Learn more about the curriculum guide.
Building Future-Ready Classrooms
Students crave access to content that excites and inspires them. And, when educators spark connections showing how daily lessons apply inside of class and beyond, they can make learning meaningful. In fact, 80% of students believe that content that connects to real-world experiences is essential for their day-to-day learning.
Career Connect Available to All Experience Partners
Career Connect brings industry professionals right into classrooms, allowing teachers to request virtual visits from employee volunteers. The feature provides experiential knowledge that reinforces educational concepts as it relates to real-world problem solving and innovation.
New Career resources in Experience will help educators show students the real-world relevance of their daily learning while building career awareness, exploration, and preparedness. These resources provide a strong connection to K-8 instruction, ensuring that career readiness begins early and empowers students to imagine endless possibilities beyond the classroom.
New, Exciting Lessons Across Our Programs
- New Experience Lessons: Experience’s vast library of curated educational content continues to grow to meet the needs of modern K-12 classrooms. For back-to-school, educators will find even more instructional resources with an Enhanced Instructional Strategy Library and Model Lessons. Students and teachers will also have access to new K-2 civics lessons, ELA Fix-It Models for middle school, and new DE Original videos for ELA and social studies.
- DreamBox Reading Expands to Grade 5: DreamBox Reading’s adaptive engine, already providing personalized reading instruction for PreK-2 students, will now support literacy development for grades 3-5. New lessons include foundational phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension strategies, helping older students master essential reading skills.
- More Mystery Science Fun: Mystery Science will feature new resources, including open-and-go lessons and vocabulary supports on topics like matter and water. Plus, we’re updating Anchor Layers on all units.
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]]>The post Leveling Up Middle School Math Engagement with DreamBox appeared first on Discovery Education.
]]>Middle school is a time of growth and discovery—a time when students connect to their personal and academic identities. For educators, it’s a pivotal period for nurturing independence and agency in learning to promote engagement. This has always been a core value for DreamBox and critical for algebra readiness, an indicator of future success in college and careers.
DreamBox Math equips students with scaffolded personalized learning that fosters conceptual understanding. Students learn to think logically, identify patterns, construct arguments and solve new and unfamiliar problems.
Empowering Engaged and Motivated Learners
We believe that learning math should inspire confidence, curiosity, and creativity in every student. That’s why we are excited to introduce a new look for the DreamBox Math middle school experience. Designed to reflect the energy, interests, and routines of today’s middle schoolers, this update isn’t just about the technology—it’s about empowering engaged, motivated learners to see the adventure in mathematics, rather than a simple problem set. In DreamBox we want to make every moment matter more, to make teaching and learning mathematics more engaging, motivating, and impactful.
Meeting a New Milestone
As 11-14-year-olds navigate this key developmental phase, they are eager to take more control over their learning choices. DreamBox, a trusted name in personalized, adaptive math instruction, has been part of many students’ journeys through elementary school. But middle school is different, and students are ready to level up.
We are committed to our partnership with educators and rely on their feedback to guide innovations that ensure the most for their students. To meet the evolving needs of learners, DreamBox tested early designs with students to learn what resonates in grades 6–8 and used their feedback to modernize the engagement.
The result? An exciting environment that combines an elevated age-appropriate environment and a more vibrant design that conveys a youthful sense of adventure and independence and thoughtfully crafted to support self-directed learning while maintaining a sense of fun and curiosity about math.
- Students will now have an easier time navigating lessons. The fresh lesson chooser design offers them greater clarity and ownership in their learning, with an Assignment panel that appears when teachers create assignments, enabling students to distinguish teacher-assigned tasks from lessons recommended by DreamBox.
- There’s something powerful about seeing your progress in real-time. With a prominently featured weekly goal tracker, students can’t miss an opportunity to self-monitor their achievements, stay motivated, and remain accountable to their learning goals.
- It’s augmenting math with an all-new vibe. Say hello to a fresh experience —this vibrant and engaging engagement is reflective of middle schoolers’ tastes and personal interests.
“I like this design better than the actual one . . . if you change your design like this and then people take a look at it, they're probably going to start wanting to work on DreamBox more often.”
Why Educators Will Love It
Middle school teachers and administrators will reap the benefits of these updates too. Students who feel more in control of their learning often engage at higher levels, making teaching not just easier, but more impactful.
Here’s how the new DreamBox middle school experience supports educators:
- Fostering Independence: With clear visibility into assignments and goals, students are equipped to take more ownership of their learning. Educators can simply assign lessons, confident that students will take the reins from there.
- More engagement: Students and educators both benefit from the learning impact of DreamBox with better data that informs teaching decisions with little to no additional effort.
- Meaningful Goal Tracking: Improved engagement means teachers get deeper insights into student learning.
Gazing into the Future
This is just the beginning. Updates to the middle school experience will continue into 2026 with:
- Student-Facing Reporting Tools designed to empower students to set and monitor their own progress—boosting both confidence and accountability.
- Exciting New Engagement Elements that continue to delight and motivate students, taking math learning to the next level of fun and interactivity.
- Ongoing lesson updates and new lessons for Grades 6–8 over the longer term to better directly align with middle school curriculum as well as educator experience improvements to support teaching routines.
With these updates, we’re excited to support teachers and administrators with tools that elevate their dedicated work, improve classroom outcomes, and cultivate a love for learning.
Together, we can make middle school math a place where students not only succeed— but thrive.
To learn more about how DreamBox can take your math instruction to the next level, visit our back-to-school landing page or reach out to a member of our team.
The post Leveling Up Middle School Math Engagement with DreamBox appeared first on Discovery Education.
]]>The post Explore the New DreamBox Math Curriculum Guide appeared first on Discovery Education.
]]>By giving educators the tools they need to connect instruction, address gaps, and foster enrichment, DreamBox is helping schools and districts create a lasting impact on student outcomes.
We’re excited to announce the release of our all-new interactive Curriculum Guide! Designed with educators in mind, this interactive guide empowers teachers, instructional coaches, and administrators to connect DreamBox lessons to classroom instruction like never before. Whether you’re looking to solidify classroom connections, gain familiarity with lessons and lesson progressions, or align with state standards, the new curriculum guide has you covered.
Reinforcing Classroom Connections
At DreamBox, we know that the best math instruction happens when it’s deeply tied to what’s being taught in real classrooms. That’s why our Curriculum Guide is built to make those connections seamless. Teachers can now filter and sort lessons by DreamBox Learning Units or by their state standards, enabling educators to see the full breadth and depth of lesson coverage in DreamBox Math.
Increased Flexibility for Teachers
Teachers want to spend less time navigating tools and more time inspiring students. With unprecedented visibility into lesson groups and individual lessons, you can confidently align DreamBox to your instructional goals. Whether students are just starting on a concept, in progress, or reviewing, you can easily find a lesson to support getting them to the next level. This flexibility makes it easier than ever to pre-teach concepts, provide intervention or enrichment, and support small-group instruction.
What’s New in the DreamBox Curriculum Guide?
The Curriculum Guide is an essential tool for any educator looking to enhance their teaching with DreamBox Math. Whether you’re complementing your curriculum, supporting a struggling student, or challenging advanced learners, DreamBox has the perfect lesson for every scenario.
1. Scope & Sequence of Lessons Made Transparent
Navigate the full breadth and depth of DreamBox’s curriculum with ease. You’ll have clear insight into the progression of lessons and how they evolve to support complex math concepts.
2. Smart, Intuitive Filters
Quickly find the exact lesson you need by filtering by:
- Grade Level
- State Standards
- DreamBox Learning Unit Domains
3. Standards Alignment at a Glance
Every lesson tile includes clear alignment to state standards, so you can connect DreamBox lessons directly to your instructional core without skipping a beat.
4. Lesson Previews
Preview individual lessons for planning, whether you’re preparing for small-group instruction or one-on-one intervention. You’ll gain insights into how lessons engage students and how the adaptive platform personalizes tasks for their needs.
Take a Deeper Look Inside DreamBox
With DreamBox’s adaptive progression, our lessons meet students where they are and move them toward mastery. Our math curriculum is built to reflect the dynamic process of learning while encouraging students to transfer prior learning. This curriculum guide enables educators to explore our lessons by domain, across three unique lesson types.
Lesson Types & Progression:
- Exploring & Sensemaking: Students explore math concepts and reflect on their understanding, making connections to foundational skills.
- Looking for Structure & Relationships: Lessons identify key mathematical structures and relationships to deepen conceptual understanding.
- Fluency, Application & Procedural Skills: Students practice and apply procedural skills with confidence, progressing toward fluency.
This intentional progression ensures that every student builds a strong mathematical foundation, regardless of where their learning begins.
Classroom Applications of DreamBox Lessons:
With the Curriculum Guide, you can:
- Enhance instruction with lessons that align directly to your classroom goals.
- Pre-teach or reinforce concepts by targeting specific standards or skills.
- Support small-group or 1-on-1 instruction, demonstrating lessons based on students’ progress toward proficiency.
Assignments and feedback tools are also on the way—stay tuned!
Why This Matters for Educators
DreamBox’s Adaptive Personalization ensures every lesson is tailored to each student’s unique needs. The new DreamBox Curriculum Guide doesn’t just support teaching; it empowers educators to confidently integrate technology into their classrooms. Here’s what it offers at a glance:
- Discover thousands of lessons for grades K-8 aligned with your state’s standards and instructional goals.
- Gain unprecedented visibility into the scope, sequence, and alignment of DreamBox lessons.
- Identify and preview lessons to plan for targeted support to meet your students where they are, and ensure every learner has the opportunity to succeed.
- Get a clearer understanding of the lessons recommended in students’ personalized learning paths and identify lessons to assign and support deeper curricular connections.
Building Connections for Educators
We’ve added this capability to DreamBox Math based on the feedback we’ve heard from our partners and we’re super excited of what’s coming soon, like the ability to assign personalized lessons from the Curriculum Guide.
Plus, this new foundation will allow us to continue gathering invaluable feedback from you, our amazing educators. Together, we’ll keep building what every teacher and every student needs to achieve math excellence.
Experience the Curriculum Guide Today
We’re thrilled to bring you this new tool, and we can’t wait to hear how it transforms the way you teach math. Log into your DreamBox account today to explore the Curriculum Guide—and get ready to experience a whole new level of teaching excellence.
Don’t have an account yet? Start your free trial and see what’s possible with DreamBox. Together, we can inspire a lifelong love of learning in math.
Happy teaching,
The DreamBox Team
The post Explore the New DreamBox Math Curriculum Guide appeared first on Discovery Education.
]]>The post Partner-Driven Improvements Enhance Personalized Learning for All Students appeared first on Discovery Education.
]]>The DreamBox Math Difference
Every student is a math student. That’s why DreamBox is dedicated to personalizing learning to meet every learner’s unique needs. We’ve worked closely with dedicated educators and their students to learn how we can continue building on this work with new product enhancements that remove more barriers to math engagement for every student. Students will notice improved opportunities to access and engage in the program, making the math experience more enjoyable for all.
Research demonstrates that when students are meaningfully and regularly engaged in DreamBox, it can drive real learning growth.
Boosting Independent Engagement through Improved Accessibility
Access to great learning experiences is in our DNA, and we aim to set a whole new standard. To go beyond just compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) standards, we have worked together with teachers, special education experts, and students with disabilities to deliver product improvements that make the experience more equitable and effective for all students.
With DreamBox every student is empowered to independently engage in interactive problem-solving— equipped with access to the tools and mathematical vocabulary they need, in the way they need them— so they can develop conceptual understanding, apply a variety of strategies, and gain competence and confidence in mathematical reasoning and skills. K-5 lessons now include:
Compatibility with assistive technology tools such as magnification and screen reader.
Screen reader with enhanced alternative descriptions supports concept understanding and streamlines problem-solving for students with limited and low vision.
See how a student with limited vision can work independently in DreamBox.
Easy-to-tap, -move, and -place elements ease interaction and accommodate a variety of devices, physical needs, and learning styles.
Intuitive keyboard navigation lets students know where they are on the lesson page and within the manipulative.
Clear visuals enable students with low vision and color blindness to distinguish selectable foreground elements from the background.
In addition to these exciting updates, the team is ensuring that all lessons have the ability to replay instructions so that students can easily refer back to the task at hand.
Easing Lesson Interaction for Racecourse Lessons
We’ve channeled the enthusiasm that last year’s updates to the Clocks lessons generated. This year, we are pleased to announce a major update to our Racecourse lessons.
In this lesson, students learn to represent equivalent fractions as part of a whole, using proportional reasoning to ensure their car reaches its destination. A number line is represented as a course where students place distance markers and add stops at equivalent distances along the way.
Guided by student and teacher feedback, we made a series of improvements that make it easier for students to get started and interact with the manipulative as they progress through this lesson.
A new “Road Trip” context is more relatable for students and makes the tasks clearer.
Numbered intervals along the course allow for easier skip counting and streamlines the problem-solving process.
Meters deplete and refill to provide visual feedback on station placement as the car now moves along the course.
Larger visuals and more space make it easier for touchscreen (and all) users to place markers along the course.
Clearer instructions and updated scaffolding ensure students have support and meaningful feedback as they progress through the lesson.
When you put all of this together, it makes a profound difference in the student experience. This is reflected in students’ reactions.
Personalized Learning For Every Student!
We’re not stopping here. We are committed to making every moment matter more in DreamBox Math, to ensure each student can work in their own place, progress at their own pace, experience joy, and gain confidence on their individual journeys toward mathematical excellence.
The post Partner-Driven Improvements Enhance Personalized Learning for All Students appeared first on Discovery Education.
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