The Language of Content

Articles from the Speak Agent team that provide classroom resources, implementation strategies, research-based perspectives, and updates regarding our Content+LanguageSM platform.

Speak Agent "Pro" Now Available


September 08, 2017 | Dan LaFountain |


The Speak Agent team worked hard over the summer to make your teaching experience even better by adding new academic language learning games and new features. These new games and features will be available for customers who upgrade to Speak Agent Pro, which is our paid tier of service. The existing practice activities and features will still be available with our free "Basic" tier. You can compare Basic vs. Pro tiers here.

Here's a summary of the new learning games:

  • Scrambled Sentences: A customizable game for teaching academic language and word order in the context of any content area using your reading materials.
  • Story Spin: A collaborative game for teaching academic language and sentence formation in the context of any content area using your vocabulary.
  • Tall Tales: A cloze game for teaching academic language by applying words in the context of stories tied to standards in science, history, language arts, and other content areas. Choose from our growing library of engaging stories!
  • Vocab Lab: A game for learning academic vocabulary by analyzing nuanced meanings. Students use combinations of words they already know to build challenging new words.

We've also added a new user management feature for account administrators to manage their roles and permissions.

Soon we will also push a major release with a whole new reporting tool that I'm sure you will love, whether you are a teacher, principal, or district administrator. It gives you all the information you need to see student progress and trouble spots with academic language − without having to be a data scientist to figure it out! In fact, we're already capturing the learning analytics that feed these reports in every game and activity. This feature is also part of Speak Agent Pro.

Dan LaFountain

Written by Dan LaFountain

Dan is Chief Learning Officer at Speak Agent, Inc. As a STEM and ELL teacher with 22 years in edtech curriculum development, Dan was integral to the launch of LEGO Mindstorms and the LEGO Education brand. He co-founded Speak Agent to address the achievement gap for marginalized learners, pioneering a unique Content+Language integration approach based on current Learning Sciences research.