For educators
Every reader is a lesson
A HummingRead reader is a story first. A child can open it, read it and close it, and that is a good use of it. Around the story, every reader also carries a complete lesson — there when you want it, invisible when you don’t:
- Pause questions inside the story, at the turns — remember what just happened, predict what comes next.
- Words to Know — the words that matter to the story, met in context first.
- The Quick Check — a short set of questions with an answer key. On screen, a pass is every question right but one.
- Let’s Talk — questions for the conversation afterwards, at the table or in the room.
- The worksheet — questions, an activity, a drawing prompt; at Purple and Yellow, a colouring page.
- Read aloud on a growing number of readers, more than 1100 today: the read-aloud script, and a narrator on 43 of them, for the youngest readers and for English learners.
Together they fill one sitting with one story. Print the sheet or the booklet, or read on screen.
Lesson at a glance
Every reader page shows what a session looks like before you open it: reading time, the number of pause questions and Words to Know, the Quick Check length, Let’s Talk and the worksheet. A tutor sees the hour; a teacher sees it fits a period.
The Teacher’s Edition
For tutors, co-ops and classrooms, a reader can also come with a Teacher’s Edition: a few pages for the adult who teaches the story, listed beside the other downloads on the reader’s page when it has one. It never changes the reader, and a family never needs it.
- Lesson at a glance — the timings and counts for one session with the story.
- The pause questions, each with what a good answer contains.
- Words to Know, with a plain definition and the sentence from the story where each first appears.
- The Quick Check answer key.
- Let’s Talk, with what to listen for.
- One activity for going further — writing, drawing, acting, comparing or looking something up — sized to the band.
- At Red and Silver, the reader’s About page restated for discussion.
Members only, and counted against the monthly downloads like any PDF.
Questions that grow with the reader
The questions are written to the band, not to the story alone. Purple asks a child to remember and predict. Yellow adds sequence and cause. Green asks for inference and character. Blue asks for evidence from the text and point of view. Red asks for close reading of a quoted line, theme, an inference the text supports but does not state, a counter-argument and a transfer to another case. Silver carries the same at first-year university level. A reader moving up a band meets a harder kind of question, not just a longer story.
One story, several bands, one discussion
The same story is on the shelf at up to six levels. A mixed room reads Sindbad’s Second Voyage at Yellow, Green and Blue and talks about it together; nobody is reading down, and there is one discussion to prepare, not three.
Progress you can show
Bands move on evidence — two or three readers at the top of a band with easy checks — never on age or grade. A reading profile gives every new reader a starting band in ten minutes.
Units, not just stories
A longer work is on the shelf as a series: each reader about one sitting long, each ending on a cliffhanger, the About page naming the source, the author and the year. A serial is a three-week unit that arrives ready.
What a school gets
Every reader in print (the sheet, the folded booklet, the binder edition), on screen and on an e-reader, and read aloud on a growing number of readers (more than 1100 today); class sets from the binder edition; the whole shelf under one membership. Ask us about classroom and school memberships — hello@hummingread.com.
The licence follows the actual use: households that read at home take Co-op Family; rooms where the institution controls access take Classroom or School Site.
Co-op Family
CA$69 per household per year
Ten-household minimum
Best for: Homeschool co-ops whose families use readers at home.
Every participating household gets its own Family Annual account. The organizer receives facilitator materials and consolidated onboarding.
Classroom
CA$299 per room per year
One named educator, up to 30 active learners
Best for: Tutors, learning pods and teacher-led rooms.
Classroom display and printing, including the binder edition for three-ring binders. No household memberships or transferable home library.
School Site Pilot
CA$1,999 per building per year
Up to 100 active learners and 10 educator accounts
Best for: Micro-schools and private-school pilots ready for vendor review.
Rosterless or low-data implementation, standard onboarding, no custom integrations.
Institutional
By quote
More than 100 learners, several buildings, single sign-on or LMS integration
Best for: Larger schools and networks.
Custom reporting and data-processing requirements handled under a written agreement.
Group licences are arranged by email at launch; self-serve checkout for groups comes later. For a co-op with fewer than ten households, standard Family memberships apply.