Lalilo is a reading comprehension and phonics learning tool from Renaissance Learning. The company offers many software solutions for students, with its products used by one third of U.S. schools and in more than 90 countries.
While the company has broad experience in reading, assessment, and math tools across Pre-K-12, Lalilo is specifically aimed at reading comprehension for K-2.
Lalilo was a French company, bought by Renaissance Learning in 2021, and incorporated into its offerings. The tool, designed for both in-school and distance learning, has more than 50,000 teachers and 360,000 students using it across the U.S. and France.
This guide aims to explain all you need to know about Lalilo to see if it could work for your class.
What is Lalilo?
Lalilo is a digital tool designed to help students with their reading comprehension and phonics learning. This is done by offering an online-based platform of learning, skills, and assessment, specifically designed for K-2 students.
Usefully, this is an adaptive system that works to help students progress at their own pace, adapting to keep things challenging without being off-putting. Teachers can see this progress using a dedicated dashboard and then apply it to future lesson planning.
Thanks to cartoon characters and a story-based journey, students can enjoy the playful nature of this system. Although, to be clear, it's not as gamified as some platforms -- just enough to keep it light and engaging for this age group.
How does Lalilo work?
Lalilo offers an opening placement test for students that allows them to find the entry level that will suit their learning journey. This early assessment introduces them to the system while also giving teachers a chance to see where they're at with their comprehension.
The lessons adapt to the student but teachers can control this and have automatic progression changed if needed, to keep students back or to skip them ahead as required.
Students make virtual journeys across planets and along the way must complete activities, read books, and complete interactive tasks that involve voice, sound, written words, and more.
Thanks to the use of AI, the system adapts in a way this is flexible, so it may revisit points or stick on an area deemed tricky for that student, rather than being totally level-based in progression. This is smart as students are asked questions about assessments to help give feedback on their experience, not just their performance.
What are the best Lalilo features?
Lalilo uses material that is built for both state and national learning standards so it can be used alongside courses in a very effective way. Thanks to the teacher dashboard, it makes monitoring student progress and adapting to suit, a simple process.
Lots of tools are available in this system, including letter-sound recognition, sight words, word families, and more. The use of voice recognition allows students to practice using a word while seeing it written for a more rounded learning experience.
Since this is built for both in-class and at-home use, it can make for a powerful tool to add to learning outside of school. Teachers can use the dashboard to set tasks for students so that they need to have any completed in time for the next lesson, for example.
Reports can be printed to be shared with other teachers, admins, and parents or guardians as needed. Usefully, there is a section on areas for improvement, making these more than just records but useful calls to action too.
How much does Lalilo cost?
Lalilo offers a free version and a paid offering, the former being limited by having fewer reporting features and dashboard controls for teachers. A 60-day trial of the full version is also available.
The Free version gives you a huge selection of phonics and comprehension programming to help students learn at their pace.
The Classroom license is charged at $250/year for up to 40 students, which gets you the full interactive dashboard controls for teachers and admins.
Lalilo best tips and tricks
Start free
Take advantage of the 60-day free trial to see if this works for your students, school, and way of teaching before committing to paying for full access.
Use in class
Before setting work for at home be sure to use this in class so students are guided and everyone knows what they're doing.
Adapt lessons
Use the feedback from student progress to adapt lessons that build on, as well as progress, the teachings being looked at in the challenges online.
