Ignition is a hyper-differentiated, student-paced series of lessons on Zinc's four essential reading skills. Students start by taking a Level Placement that determines their starting level. Then, they make their way through passages and questions, working with increasingly difficult texts and getting extra instruction and practice if they reach a skill that challenges them. Once they've completed all their required levels, they'll take a final Level Placement. To complete Ignition, we recommend allotting 120 total minutes of class time, spread out over the course of two weeks.

We created Ignition because we often hear from middle and high school teachers that they need more resources for teaching reading comprehension. Struggling students need to be able to read grade level texts, and all readers should be prepared to access college-level texts. We've identified four key skills that we've found have the biggest impact on reading comprehension:

Our shared goal — among Zinc, teachers, and students — is reading comprehension growth. We believe that by meeting students where they are, and guiding them at their own pace, Ignition can make a difference.

You can assign Ignition to individual students or your entire class in less than five minutes! Each student may be assigned Ignition twice a year. We recommend beginning each semester with Ignition using our two-week implementation plan.

To assign Ignition, click "Assign Activities" in the middle of the top menu and then click "Ignition."

You will now be on the Ignition assignment page. From here, you can assign Ignition, view past Ignition assignments, track student progress, and cancel Ignition assignments. To continue, click the green "Assign Ignition" button in the top-right corner.

Clicking the button makes a pop-up appear. You'll see how long each activity tends to take for students to complete over a two-week period. Select whether you want to assign Ignition to an entire class or classes or individual students.

If you select the option for classes, you may choose one of your active classes from a drop down menu. If you select students, begin typing a student's name to select them. Once you've entered all the classes or students, just click "Assign Reading Ignition Unit." Your students will now see the assignment on the dashboard of their Zinc homepage.

The system may alert you that a student did not receive an Ignition assignment. This occurs if a student has an ongoing Ignition assignment or if they have recently completed Ignition. If a student received an Ignition assignment from another teacher, you may follow their progress and view their results with your class's Activity Progress Report.

To get the most out of Ignition with your students, plan to spend about 120 total minutes of class time on the program over the course of two weeks. Most students will complete Ignition’s core activities in 45 to 60 minutes per week. Please see below for more detailed implementation suggestions.

If a student hasn't taken a recent Level Placement, they must complete one at the beginning of Ignition. The first week of Ignition includes introductory materials, Use Your Senses, Make It Real, and Zinc-ing: Show What You Know. The second week includes Pronouns, Navigators, Tracking: Show What You Know, and a final Level Placement.

Please note: The second week of Ignition does not unlock for students until one week after the assignment is made.

Ignition is designed to allow students to work at their own paces. As a result, they will likely be in different places in their Ignition journey at any given time. Students who finish each week’s activities early will see additional challenge material. Ignition's "Power Up" activities keep everyone in on-task for the full allotted time.

It's easy to experience Ignition from a student perspective! This special preview allows you to try out various parts of Ignition. There are special options that aren't available to students to help you try everything out.

To reach the Ignition preview , click "Assign Activities" in the middle of the top menu. Under "Ignition," click "Try this as a student."

You'll now start Ignition as if you were a student. For more information about what a student will experience in Ignition, see below. The biggest difference between the preview and an actual assignment are the purple "Skip to the End" buttons. You can use these at any time to continue to the next part of Ignition.

You can even preview Ignition at a variety of reading levels. Once you reach the Ignition map, click the green "Start Level Placement" button. This will take you to an actual Level Placement.

You can complete as much or as little of this assessment as you like. At any time, click the purple "Skip to the End" button. The options to choose a specific Zinc Level will appear. Select the Level you prefer and click "Complete."

This Ignition preview will now reflect that Level. Each time you begin an Ignition preview, you may choose a different level (For more information about Zinc Levels and Level Placements, please click here.)

There are two ways to view Ignition reports in Zinc, the Activity Progress Report and the Assignment Ignition Report. The Activity Progress Report gathers information for all students in a class, while the Assignment Ignition Report shows information for a particular Ignition assignment.

With the Activity Progress Report, you'll find details for the most recent Ignition assignment for every student in a particular class. This report is especially useful if you have a student who was assigned Ignition separately or by a different teacher. Here, you can view every student's progress and results.

To reach the Reports page, click “View Classes & Reports” in the top menu on your Zinc homepage and then click “Reports.” Under "Activity Progress Report" select the class you’d like to view from from the dropdown menu. Select "Ignition" from the "Select an activity" dropdown. Then click the “Generate Report” to display the report for that specific class.

If you're signed into Zinc, here's a direct link to the Reports page. For details on the Activity Progress Report, please visit the relevant section of the Teacher Reports help article.

You'll find Assignment Ignition Reports on the Ignition page. Find the class or student you assigned Ignition to, then click "View Report."

On the report page, you can see an overview of which skills your students have started, completed, and struggled with. Then, click the student's name to get level by level details.

Use the key to find out if:

Make note of a student's initial Level Placement, then track their progress as they move through their required levels. A red circle may indicate the student needs further attention in the skill area.

Once your students complete their final Level Placement, you will be able to see if they improved. Here is a breakdown of what Zinc levels mean.

You're the expert on how Ignition will work best in your classroom! We recommend setting aside ~60 minutes per week for Ignition over the course of two weeks.

Here are some sample plans, based on 120 minutes total completion time:

Most students should complete Ignition with this amount of time. Please see below for how Ignition keeps students who complete their core sections sooner to stay focused on their reading skills.

Here are a few favorite implementation strategies from current Zinc teachers:

We put together some slide presentations for each of the Ignition skills so that teachers can integrate the skills and terminology found in Ignition into their classrooms. The more on-board teachers are with this approach, the more effective the Ignition experience will be!

We're sure there are some edits you'd like to make, so these Google Slides documents are totally editable!

To do edit the Google Slides:

Here are some offline activities to reinforce the skills your students are learning in Zinc! These custom printables are perfect for assigning as classwork or homework.

We've also provided printable resource pages to help teach Zincing skills. We hope you'll find these pages valuable for instruction or as a classroom resource.

If you have someone who finished Zinc early or just needs a little more time with the material, these options have you covered!

Use Your Senses

Make It Real

Activate Pronouns

Navigate with Transitions and Punctuation

Because Ignition is auto-differentiated, students work at different levels and at different paces. This leads to a variation in how long they take to finish all of Ignition.

If you have students who finish early, Ignition has "Power Up" activities to keep your fast flyers engaged! These students have opportunities to explore additional articles or grow their vocabulary. Ignition keeps everyone learning and working hard together.

While monitoring to ensure students are making regular progress, give students targets and dates by which to complete each skill. While students are working on Ignition independently, have 1:1 conferences to discuss their progress, frustrations, and feelings of accomplishment. Based on how long it's taking your students to get through skills, set a final due date. If some students finish early, either ask them to complete bonus levels or explore their interests via Zinc articles and quizzes and self report their quiz scores to you.

We built Ignition with the following parallels in mind:

Senses: tapping into sensory words and phrases

Make it Real: connecting real examples to abstract ideas

Key Images: identifying and making meaning from key images

Pronouns and Antecedents: tracking who is doing what in each sentence

Navigators: following the signals and layers authors create to make meaning

Ready to start Ignition with your class? If you're signed into Zinc, you can follow this link to assign Ignition!