Gina Berry is a Grade 7 ELA Teacher at Andrew Carnegie Middle School in Sacramento, California

Many schools have successfully laid the groundwork with the Science of Reading—students are decoding words with fluency and accuracy. But decoding is just the beginning. The next step is helping students make meaning from what they read. That’s where Shoelace Learning steps in.
Shoelace bridges the gap between reading the words and understanding them. Our game-based platform supports comprehension skill-building through adaptive learning, engaging content, and real-time insights for educators. Whether it’s making inferences, identifying main ideas, or connecting background knowledge, Shoelace equips students to think critically about texts—and enjoy the process.
This fall, Shoelace partnered with the research arm of Michigan Virtual to run a pilot to evaluate the efficacy of
As educators, we know the most effective tools for student growth are those that engage and excite learners. In the