NoRedInk

NoRedInk is a website designed to help students learn and practice essential elements of English grammar and elements of good writing. Teachers can create classes, add students, and assign specific skills to lead students toward mastery. It has material for just about every possible writing convention, ranging from subject-verb agreement and parallelism to compound sentence structure and citation formats. NoRedInk also allows teachers to create and assign writing prompts, expanding assessment potential beyond grammar drills. Within the teacher dashboard, it's easy to see students' work completion and progress toward mastery of individual skills. The diagnostics, practice, and quiz elements give detailed information about each student. The Premium version adds some of the site's best features, including a complete curriculum for grammar and writing as well as tools to help students revise and improve their writing. 

For students, NoRedInk allows for some degree of personalization. Students can select their interests (sports, movies, TV shows, books, etc.) and then see passages reflecting these interests. When beginning a new topic, NoRedInk gives straightforward instruction and learning tips and then provides clear, easy-to-understand support as students build understanding. Students can easily monitor their own progress and identify areas for growth.

Research shows that becoming a good writer requires engaging writing assignments, quality feedback, and a well-maintained reading habit. NoRedInk can be a useful tool for helping students master writing conventions and improve their writing style and fluency. Students benefit from targeted practice to learn and develop specific skills, and the content-rich platform allows teachers to quickly identify where students need help and target instruction to provide them with greater support. Plus, encouraging revisions through feedback means that kids will spend more time improving the quality of writing they produce.

There's a ton of content on the site to help with specific grammatical skills, as well as excellent feedback and support for motivated students to dig in. Even though students might find some of the interest-based content a little cheesy or stale, it provides some personalization and can be effective in small doses. These targeted exercises and writing activities, along with getting students to use the support within the tool, should grow students' understanding of writing and grammar mechanics. Teachers can then use the dashboard to easily target instruction and help students set clearly defined goals as they refine their writing skills.