Books That Grow
Books That Grow is an online educational platform that offers digital books that adapt to readers' abilities. Using this learning management system, two people reading the same title may see entirely different words, sequences of ideas, or illustrations, depending upon their individual learning profile. The application focuses specifically on the needs of pre-teens, adolescents and adults with low literacy, a population under-served by leading publishers. Books That Grow seeks to help users become better readers and allow educator to measure students' abilities and track their progress. The company is headquartered in New York City. History . Books That Grow was founded by Daniel Fountenberry, a former teacher and news executive in 2012. The project was first known as Borne Digital and was publicly launched February 14, 2013 at the Tools for Change in Publishing Conference Other co-founders include Jason Buhle, a cognitive neuroscientist. A Kickstarter campaign was launched in January, 2014, to accelerate funding for Books that Grow. Books That Grow offers the same text at different reading levels, with titles in several genres categorized as biographies, classic fiction, folktales, primary source documents, science, and social studies. Reception. Adoption. As of June 2015, Books That  Grow is being used in over 1,000 schools across the United States. Awards. For its efforts in developing an accessible online educational platform, Books That Grow was named 'Most Innovative Start Up' by the members of the International Society for Technology in Education in 2017 and received the 2014 Verizon Powerful Answers Award in Education as well as the 2014 National School Board Association's Innovation Showcase. Reviews. On February 11, 2014, "EdTech Digest" featured Books That Grow in "Cool Tools", stating: "It's already making somewhat of a splash in the publishing world and is now just setting up  to make its way into classrooms across the country." The article specifically noted Books That Grow's progress on Kickstarter and coverage on MSNBC and CNN. On April 7, 2015, ClassTechTips highly recommended Books That Grow, writing: "The best part about Books to Grow is that every book can be read at 3-5 different levels of text complexity. Teachers can differentiate instruction by allowing them to assign the same reading to a class of mixed ability students, while permitting these students to learn at their own level, and make steady gains in their reading skills. Teachers can also create  classrooms in the app, monitor the books their students read, and adjust their set reading levels by book or by student."