Amplify ELA Community Review Site
Welcome to the Amplify ELA community review site for Idaho Falls School District. This site is designed to help you learn about Amplify ELA—a core English Language Arts curriculum for Grade 6.
Your district leaders want to hear from you! Please share your thoughts by completing this district survey.
What is Amplify ELA?
Amplify ELA helps kids in grades 6–8 read and understand complex texts that encourage them to grapple with interesting ideas and find relevance for themselves. Amplify ELA is a blended program that includes both digital and print materials, as well as a print-only version. Students using Amplify ELA read text passages closely, interpret what they find, discuss their thinking with peers, and develop their ideas in writing. The lesson structure is easy to follow, but flexible enough to allow for a variety of learning experiences and varied enough to keep students engaged.
Features include:
- Functionality that allows individual students to work at their own level while also being challenged appropriately.
- Built-in tools that allow teachers to track and respond to student work.
- The digital Amplify Library, which contains more than 700 downloadable full-length fiction and nonfiction books.
- The Vocab App, which uses game-like activities to help students master keywords from the program’s texts. (Students using print materials will see keywords highlighted).
- Independent writing assignments called Solos, available on mobile devices.
Unit Overviews
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Unit 6A: Dahl & Narrative
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Unit 6B: Mysteries & Investigations
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Unit 6C: The Chocolate Collection
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Unit 6D: The Greeks
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Unit 6E: Summer of the Mariposas
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Unit 6F: The Titanic Collection
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Unit 6G: Beginning Story Writing
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Unit 6H: Grammar
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Optional Unit: Poetry in America
Materials overview
Amplify ELA is a blended program, which means your student will be interacting with both print and digital materials.
Print materials
Student Edition
Includes all of the readings and activities necessary for instruction throughout the year. Students can read the selections both digitally and in print throughout the year, annotating in either format. The lessons in the print Student Edition reflect each digital lesson, but have been modified to work effectively in print.
Writing Journals
Where students respond to Writing Prompts and complete other written assignments.
Novel Guides
Teachers can also access, print, and mail student Novel Guides for up to 12 commonly taught novels. Six of these novels are available in the Amplify Library, and most should be available in a public library.
Digital materials
Quests
You may notice your student working with peers on the same interactive project over several days, trying to solve a mystery or explain a historical event. That’s what happens when a teacher assigns a Quest: an in-depth week-long exploration that requires collaboration and deepens engagement with texts and topics.
Vocab App
The Vocab App helps students master vocabulary words through game-like activities that challenge them to think through morphology, analogy, and synonyms/antonyms, and to decipher meaning through context.
Support your child at home
How you can support the child in your care
- If possible, read with your student daily; even 15 minutes of reading together each day can make a huge impact. You can read aloud sections of the text together—many middle grade students enjoy performing sections of dialogue by taking on the role of a character in a play, or adding some dramatic flair to a poem with which they are working. If your student struggles with reading aloud, you might try reading the text to them with expression, then having them read it back to you. For additional practice, there are an array of fluency activities in the program’s Flex Days. Ask your student to help you find this activity.
- Find moments to discuss what they are reading and discovering. Examples of questions you could ask: What stood out to you from what you read today? Were any sentences or words confusing? What was most surprising? What do you think the writer was trying to communicate? Do you agree with the writer’s ideas or descriptions? What connections can you make between what you are reading and your own life or other issues?
- Listen to your student read their written responses or have them share with a friend over the phone or video chat.
- Browse the Amplify Library with your student to find books they’ll enjoy and be able to read fluently and independently.
- Review this Protecting Kids Online article by the Federal Trade Commission addressing digital safety.
Program access
Before accessing the program, watch the below video to learn even more about Amplify ELA! Then scroll down and follow the login instructions provided.
Take a closer look at the program with the Idaho Falls Community demo account! Follow these simple instructions to access our program digitally.
- Click the ELA Digital Platform button.
- Select Log in with Amplify.
- Enter this username: t1.ifela6@demo.tryamplify.net
- Enter this password: Amplify1-ifela6
- Select any unit to explore.
Where to go for help
Whether you have questions about your technology or want to know more about the program, Amplify’s Support Team is here to help!
Contact Support via telephone at (833) 97-Care-8 (833-972-2738) or caregiver@amplify.com.
Our support hours are Monday – Friday, 7 am – 9 PM ET, and Sunday, 10 – 6 ET.