Personalized learning programs in Chicago are helping to boost reading scores for students equivalent to 13 percentile points of growth, a recent analysis found.

The private, charter and traditional public schools studied are part of a Chicago cohort that’s been working with LEAP Innovations, a national personalized learning organization, to individualize student instruction by pairing schools with education technology and coaches who help teachers reimagine their instruction and classroom design.

“Learning is personal, and every student is unique,” said Phyllis Lockett, founder, and CEO of LEAP Innovations. “When you think about the future of work and the level of agility and creative problem-solving required for our students to be successful in the workplace, what is helping educators to be able to teach in that paradigm is really important.”

LEAP works with schools to make their instruction more personalized, consulting them on everything from school scheduling to how to use student data and best practices to help encourage student-driven learning.

However, LEAP still has work to do when it comes to figuring out how to improve math scores. The Chicago students were the first who tried its personalized math instruction, but they didn’t improve any more than their peers who didn’t use this technology.

Under this personalized learning system, Gutierrez said, he has seen students transform from passive learners waiting for the lecture-style instruction to engaged learners making choices in their lessons and accepting more responsibilities.

Read the full article about LEAP and personalized learning by Kate Stringer at The 74.