WOOD COUNTY, W.Va. — Some public school students in Wood County now have access to all kinds of additional reading materials in multiple forms as part of a new partnership between Wood County Schools and the Parkersburg and Wood County Public Library.
Available to middle school students at Blennerhassett Middle, Hamilton Middle and Williamstown High for the first time is Sora, a reading app from OverDrive and OverDrive Education.
In addition to a variety of age-appropriate content from school libraries, Sora also gives students the ability to check out e-books and audiobooks from the public library’s complete collection via the same app.
“This app and this partnership with our public library lets us get more books in the hands of our readers,” said Ashlee Beatty, curriculum coordinator for Wood County Schools.
“This partnership really allows us to expand the titles they have available and then also give a variety of types of materials that they’re reading.”
The Sora app for students launched in Wood County last month. It’s the only county in West Virginia participating in the full school and library sharing program, according to OverDrive officials.
In Greenbrier County, students use Sora to connect to their public library with library cards instead of school-integrated credentials.
Additionally, 28 schools in West Virginia currently access their school digital collections of e-books and audiobooks with Sora.
Before Sora, the Parkersburg and Wood County Public Library was already one of 64 public libraries in West Virginia sharing electronic materials through Libby, another OverDrive application.
With the expansion into Wood County schools, “We wanted to start small,” Beatty said of what is a pilot program.
“The goal is that we can expand this partnership into all of our schools that have the student devices into the next school year.”
Students can use Sora through their classroom iPads, which were issued to all Wood County students in grades K-8 this school year, while they are at school or on their own personal devices when they are at home.
Teachers can utilize Sora to encourage individualized learning through education-specific tools like achievements, exportable notes and reading progress.
Through more access to books, Beatty said they’re trying to building a “reading culture.”
“It’s our hope that we can help students just fall in love with reading,” she said.
“We focus a lot on numbers and reading levels, but this I really just see as a way to help kids open their minds and just open their worlds to reading.”