Zinc’s Blog
Here are our thoughts, best practices, and resources for giving middle and high school students concious-reading skills and a love-based learning experience.
How to Persuade Teenagers (and Adults!) to Read Challenging Texts
by Matt Bardin, Zinc Learning Labs Founder and CEO
In this environment, isn’t reading higher-level texts, including books, poetry, essays, and scientific studies pretty much over? An esoteric art for a shrinking cohort of nerds and their descendants?
No. Not at all. Every parent and increasingly most kids know that living online robs us of something essential. Reading, especially on an adult level—a profound pleasure that has never reached more than maybe 15% of the population, solves one of the biggest problems in our digital lives and, therefore, finally has the chance to become ubiquitous.
Zinc Learning Labs Receives Clean SOC 2 Type 2 Attestation Report!
Zinc Learning Labs is proud to announce that we’ve received a clean SOC 2 [Type 2] attestation report. This is an important milestone but is in no way an end to our commitment to our customers and the security of their data. Zinc Learning Labs views security as the foundation upon which our products are built and upon which trust with our customers is earned and maintained.
Love-Driven Effort: Student Agency in the Digital Age
by Matt Bardin, Zinc Learning Labs Founder and CEO
The basic units of motivation have always been external and fear-driven. Work hard in school, we’ve told students, or you’ll get a bad grade, disappoint your family, look foolish in front of peers, or fail to get into college or secure a good job. We have been trying to train people like we train dogs. We love our pets, but our students’ lives demand cognitive skills that go way beyond obedience and rote moves.
Free Resources to Put the Joy Back in Reading
At Zinc, we strive to put joy back in reading by both exposing students to texts on topics of their choice and teaching them what to do when they read. But our real dream is that all secondary students will have a book in their backpack–a book that they are reading for fun.
Zinc Receives College Board CEO Breakthrough Award
In recognition of Zinc’s contribution to education, the College Board presented Zinc with the CEO Breakthrough Award. This special award highlights Zinc’s achievements with teachers, students, and administrators. With Zinc, students learn skills they can apply to every text they read and every test they take.
The Power of the Purposeful Pause
Taking breaks, or a purposeful pause, while learning new things can enhance focus and concentration, provide time for processing new information and improve retention.
Why Start the Year with Reading Instruction?
When words on the page aren’t successfully translated into meaningful images and ideas, it’s difficult—or even impossible—to take on higher-level topics like tone, author’s purpose, text structure, and argument.
“How to Get Kids to Hate English”
All the hand-wringing about the end of literature majors and even reading in general ignores basic facts.