SELF-GUIDED WALKTHROUGH· 2026

Getting started with LitLab

Early reading practice that's aligned to your scope & sequence, differentiated for every reader, and joyful for kids.

SELF-GUIDED WALKTHROUGH

What's inside

Five parts, about 20 minutes end to end. Use the arrow keys to move at your own pace, or click on the section you’re most interested below.

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Data & progress monitoring

See who needs support and who's ready to move on.

Login to LitLab

Create a free account, or bring LitLab to your school.

01

Why LitLab

Reading research is clear about how much practice young readers need — and how it's tough to fit the right practice within a school day.

01 · WHY LITLAB

The practice gap

To lock in a new phonics pattern, most students need repeated exposure — far more than most single lessons provides.

“Most classrooms provide one or two exposures during instruction. The rest of the practice has to come from somewhere.”

— Wiley Blevins, A Fresh Look at Phonics

EXPOSURES TO CONSOLIDATE ONE PATTERN

Research says students need

4–6

Typical instruction provides

1–2

The gap between them is exactly what LitLab fills.

0.12 SD

treatment-group advantage

1.3

extra months of learning

Knox County RCT · Tennessee SCORE + Accelerate, 2024–25

Both groups got high-dosage tutoring. The only difference: whether the materials aligned to students' classroom program.

Stronger effects for students in the bottom 10% of performers

Small groups of four reached a 0.49 SD advantage

Coherence with the classroom program mattered more than tutor credentials

01 · WHY LITLAB

Aligned practice moves the needle

The teacher experience is organized into three areas — all built to give kids the extra exposures practice calls for, without you sourcing or making materials.

Works with your phonics program:

UFLI

CKLA

Fundations

Benchmark

Superkids

Reading Horizons

01 · WHY LITLAB

What LitLab does

Use LitLab decodables for the connected text portion of the lesson

01 · WHY LITLAB

LitLab already fits within your routine

Prep your reading center materials in minutes

02

Browse the library

Over 1,500 of staff-created decodables, filtered to your lesson and students’ needs in seconds.

Every story is decodability-scored and mapped to a lesson

Print for centers or assign online in a couple of clicks

Fresh, seasonal, and staff-picked stories added regularly

02 · LIBRARY

A grab-and-go library

Press Educator Tools → Library on your toolbar to open the full catalog of staff-created decodable stories.

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Scope & sequence

UFLI, CKLA, Fundations, Benchmark, Superkids, Reading Horizons, and more.

Decodability %

Match stories to your students' current skill level.

Target skill

Short vowels, blends, digraphs, or advanced patterns — down to the lesson.

Story length

Differentiate by complexity and reading stamina.

Filter to the right story

02 · LIBRARY

Pick the format that best fits your students

Every story exports in five formats from the Story Options menu — same text, different amount of picture support.

02 · LIBRARY

DOCS

What’s included with a story

An example of what’s included in Bud the Cub:

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02 · LIBRARY

Open Educator Tools → Library from your toolbar

Filter by program, skill & decodability

Preview a story that fits your class

Press Print and test out our different printing formats

02 · LIBRARY

Now, let’s try it!

03

Create & personalize

Generate a decodable or printable activity with the exact skill and customization your students need.

Choose fiction, non-fiction, or reader’s theater

Select the lesson the decodable should be aligned to

Generate a decodable in seconds

03 · CREATE

Press Educator Tools → Generate to build a brand-new decodable that fits your students’ needs.

Make it about your students

03 · CREATE

Personalized stories mean students read want to read them again and again — exactly the repeated practice the research calls for.

Add a character name that reflect your students (Pat → Mateo)

Enter Custom words to incorporate interests, home languages, or HFW

Great for repeated practice on a tricky pattern

Fine-tune any decodable before it reaches students — adjust wording and swap illustrations for vocabulary support or to reflect who's in your class.

Edit the text

Edit the illustrations using a prompt

Edit the text, regenerate the illustrations

03 · CREATE

Assign

Students read on any device — and you get recordings, decoding & encoding accuracy, and comprehension data..

Print

One click to a illustrated PDFs for centers, small groups, or take-home.

Then, assign or print

03 · CREATE

Above the story, click Print or Assign for your students to read your creation!

Open the Activities tab on the Generator page to turn any phonics skill into a printable worksheet. Pick a skill, generate, and print!

Sentence Fluency Pyramid

LIVE

Fill in the Blank

LIVE

Roll & Read

SOON

Memory Matching

SOON

While in beta, generations are unlimited — for both free and premium accounts.

Printable activities

03 · CREATE

Sentence Fluency Pyramid

One sentence built across 4–6 growing lines. Because each line adds to the last, students re-read the same words as the sentence grows — repeated reading on a single page.

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Add a custom word — a student's name or a bonus vocabulary word — and it's woven into the sentence.

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After reading the pyramid, students write the sentence and draw a picture to show their understanding.

The cat

The cat sat

The cat sat on

The cat sat on the mat.

Fill in the Blank

A MAZE-style page of 3–5 decodable sentences, each with one blank and three choices. The distractors are phonetically similar, near-misses, so students must decode all three and pick the one that makes most sense.

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Phonics practice and reading for meaning on one page — with an answer key on page two.

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Sam ran up the ______.

hill

hull

hip

Two activities, both aligned to your phonics lesson

03 · CREATE

Sentence Fluency Pyramid

Fill in the Blank

Two activities, both aligned to your phonics lesson

03 · CREATE

Open Educator Tools → Generate from your toolbar

Choose your phonics program and your most recent lesson

Personalize your decodable story with custom words &

a student’s name

Press Print and send home the story with your student for extra practice

Now, let’s try it!

03 · CREATE

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The student experience

Spelling, reading aloud, comprehension, and AI feedback — all in one joyful flow.

Big, tappable, and read-aloud friendly buttons — designed for Chromebooks and iPads.

Stories from your assignment appear right at the top

Create a story and Find a story unlock after students finish their assignment

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A homepage built for kids

04 · STUDENTS

Every assigned story opens with a short spelling activity, so students encode the target words before they read them.

First attempt: Students hear the word broken into sounds and see which sounds they missed.

Second attempt: Students see the correct spelling before moving on to the story.

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Encoding and decoding the same pattern back-to-back multiplies exposures — the quantity of practice research asks for.

Spelling target skill words before reading

04 · STUDENTS

Reading each page aloud reveals its illustration — a small, joyful reason to keep reading, while also preventing students from relying on picture cues.

Recording powers the accuracy & fluency data

A fluent narrator models the text afterward

Read aloud to unlock the picture

04 · STUDENTS

Questions appear throughout the story, so students practice understanding — not just decoding — on every read.

Comprehension woven into the story

04 · STUDENTS

After a recording, students review up to 3 target skill words the AI flagged as incorrect — with the sounds mapped to letters.

Flags the highest-leverage words to review

Shows orthographic mapping, sound by sound

AI analysis & feedback

04 · STUDENTS

Students can create, too!

04 · STUDENTS

Every student-created story is aligned to the skill you assign them. Students choose:

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Character

Name (including their own!)

Setting

05

Data & progress monitoring

Listen to your students read aloud, see who needs support, who's ready for the next skill, and when to assign new stories.

First, add your students to Litlab!

05 · DATA

Two ways to roster, depending on how you sign in.

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Press Sync

Your roster comes over automatically – no need to type any names.

IF YOUR SCHOOL USES CLEVER OR CLASSLINK

Press Create Class

Name your class and type/paste in student names.

IF YOU SIGN IN WITH EMAIL OR GOOGLE

Press Student Platform → Students to go to your dashboard monitor progress and assign in one place.

Accuracy rings flag who needs attention

See each student's current skill at a glance

Assign a new story without leaving the view

Assign stories and monitor progress all in one place

05 · DATA

Press + New Assignment to open up the assignment flow.

Select the skill

Choose the stories aligned to your skill

Pick your settings and students, then you’re done!

Create an assignment aligned to your next lesson

05 · DATA

Choose Read Aloud mode to get the AI Analysis and real-time student feedback

Every assignment includes the student's recording, scored and annotated by our AI analysis.

Accuracy, comprehension & WPM at a glance

Miscues highlighted right in the passage

Playback or download any recording

Listen to every reading

05 · DATA

Track growth over time

05 · DATA

Click any student's name to open average metrics and fluency graphs.

Accuracy & WPM trends over the last 30 days

Filter by skill and date to pinpoint support

Classwide skill mastery, at a glance

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05 · DATA

Press Skill Maps to see mastery for every lesson in your sequence — green, emerging, or needs support.

A matching map for high-frequency words

Settings for each student

05 · DATA

Open the three-dot menu on any student row in the dashboard.

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Rename or delete

Fix a name or remove a student from your roster.

Story generation

Enable or disable whether this student can create their own stories.

Spanish support

Turn it on and the student's directions and questions appear in Spanish — the decodable text stays in English.

To get the most accurate AI analysis:

05 · DATA

Environment

• Find the quietest available space — especially important if headphones with microphones aren't available
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• Reduce background noise as much as possible
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• Create designated, quiet reading zones
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• Seat students reading the same story farther apart, so the AI doesn't confuse their voices

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Equipment

• Headphones with a microphone give more accurate results than built-in laptop or tablet mics
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• Wireless lavalier or clip-on mics, if available, improve accuracy greatly
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• Position the device within 12 inches of the student
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• Built-in device microphones work in quieter spaces, but with lower accuracy
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Best scenario: Headphones with a lavalier or clip-on mic

Best scenario: a quiet, designated spot to record.

Find a story that fits your current lesson plan.

Assign the story to your students.

Help students log in using the class code or through Clever/ ClassLink. (login method depends on how you rostered)

Go to your dashboard to review the data!

Now, let’s try it!

05 · DATA

06

Resources and support

Check out our Help Center and use the Student Facing Introduction to get started with your students!

Find support to get the most out of LitLab

06 · SUPPORT

Help Center

Access additional guides, best practices from other teachers, and an AI assistant to get support.

Need Help?

Use our Contact Us form to submit a request. Our team is always here to help and will get back to you ASAP!

Professional Development

Find mores resources, video walkthroughs, 1-page quick start guide, get LitLab certified, and more!

Introduce LitLab to your students

06 · SUPPORT

The following slides are designed to guide students on enabling recording permissions and getting familiar with the audio recording features. Complete the following preparation steps before presenting the student slides to your class:

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Assign a story

Find a suitable grab-and-go story and assign it to your class.

Insert log-in instructions to slides

Make a copy of these slides and add your unique class code/login instructions on this slide of the student presentation.

Select Read Aloud mode

Choose Read Aloud mode when assigning the story in the Settings section of the assignment flow.

Choose browser

On your personal copy of the presentation, delete the slides that are not related to the browser your students are using (the top right corner of slides 49-51 shows you the browser)

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Official LitLab Audio All-Star

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🎤

🎤

What Audio All-Stars Do

LitLab.ai

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Record Your Reading

Read stories and record your voice

🎤

Share Your Ideas

Tell us what you like and what could be better

🗣️

Get Ready

Find a quiet spot with your technology

🎧🤫

Sneak peak!

LitLab.ai

Let’s watch this video to get a sneak peak of LitLab

LitLab.ai

Unlock the pictures….

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After Reading

Before Reading

LitLab.ai

…using the recording buttons!

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1) Press the microphone button

2) Read the page out loud

3) When you’re done, press the red button

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Audio All Star Tips!

LitLab.ai

🗣️ Speak clearly

🎧 Use headphones

🚀 Just keep reading, even if you make a mistake

🤫 Find a quiet spot

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Official LitLab Audio All-Star

Step 1

LitLab.ai

Sign in to LitLab

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Step 2

LitLab.ai

Click any story from your assignments

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Step 2

LitLab.ai

Let your teacher hear you

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Allow www.litlab.ai to use your microphone?

Allow while visiting the site

Allow this time

Never allow

When you see this message, click “Allow white visiting the site”

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Step 2

LitLab.ai

Let your teacher hear you

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When you see this message, click “Allow”

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Step 2

LitLab.ai

Let your teacher hear you

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When you see this message, click “Allow”

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Step 3

LitLab.ai

Let’s start reading!

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Share Your Thoughts

LitLab.ai

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🗣️

👍 What did you LIKE about reading on LitLab?

🤔 What was HARD or confusing about LitLab?

💡 What would make reading on LitLab even more FUN?

🎯Any other IDEAS to make LitLab better?

Note to teachers: Feel free to share your students’ feedback with us! Contact drew@litlab.ai.

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