Las Brisas Academy

Goodyear, Arizona

2025 Read Live School of the Year Runner-up

Submitted by Erin Brandon, Reading Specialist

Las Brisas Academy receives a $500 Read Naturally Gift Certificate.

Las Brisas Academy has used Read Live for years with their intervention groups. This year, they’ve kickstarted a new initiative to support all students in the earliest stages of their reading development: Read Live Roadrunners. Now, every first-grade student in the school uses Read Live for 30 minutes every day. For every three stories a student completes, they earn a small prize and get to move their roadrunner along the progress board on the wall.

Teachers have observed remarkable growth: students reading fewer than 10 words per minute in December increased to 40-50 words per minute in the Spring. Additionally, students’ scores on the Acadience Reading assessment have notably improved.

But perhaps most importantly, the first graders at Las Brisas Academy are truly experiencing the joy of reading. Not only are students feeling more confident in their own reading abilities, but thanks to the Roadrunners board, they are also celebrating their growth as a community. Students see their classmates’ progress and they cheer each other on! The overall success of the Read Live Roadrunners initiative has been so great that they’re planning to expand it to more grade levels next year.

Las Brisas Academy has a strong belief in every child’s potential and is dedicated to providing sustainable, individualized, and impactful reading instruction to all students. They are a model of excellence in literacy instruction and a very deserving awardee of the Read Live School of the Year scholarship.