You want an easy-to-use tool to prepare your students for high-stakes tests. Your students want learning that’s fun. Everyone wants to see test scores soar. Give your students the Orchard Online advantage!

It’s Online

Orchard Online’s study strategy takes full advantage of the technology available via the Web. The program contains a comprehensive bank of test items. Management of data is precise yet simple. There are no messy print materials—and data is automatically aggregated electronically.

It’s Targeted

Orchard Online’s pretests identify areas of strength and weakness; students practice the assigned concepts, posttests show his or her level of growth. Orchard Online’s reporting feature gives you real time student data to pinpoint areas needing additional work.

It’s Motivating and Fun

A variety of media keeps Orchard Online content engaging and interactive. Students are rewarded with motivating, fun games and receive immediate feedback and test results that help them stay focused.

Students who use Orchard Online at school or at home will explore a new world of success on standardized tests. Teachers who use Orchard Online will appreciate its effectiveness and ease of use. Administrators will appreciate the improvement in test scores and Adequate Yearly Progress.

Standards-based Assessment

Orchard Online's test and practice items are carefully aligned with the testing and curriculum standards for the math and language arts grade levels assessed in each state. Most states have undertaken the tasks of codifying their academic standards and correlating curriculum and instruction to those standards. Most states have also implemented criterion-referenced summative assessment programs that annually test their students’ growth in skill and knowledge. Each state test is developed using selected critical standards from the state’s published academic standards.

Orchard Online’s test and practice items are carefully aligned with the testing standards for the grade levels assessed in each state. In addition, Orchard Online items are designed to mimic the items found on actual state tests, so that the online practice experience is as realistic as possible.

Motivating Games

When a student completes a practice module, he or she is rewarded with an interactive game that is designed to be both challenging and pure fun. The more the student plays, the more skill he or she develops—and the more skill, the higher his or her game score. Students will enjoy competing and comparing game scores. The secret of Orchard Online’s games is that they motivate success: the amount of game play awarded is based on the number of practice items answered correctly—more correct answers, more game play.

Orchard Online’s game feature also helps increase focus. While some similar products incorporate game play into the sequence of practice and feedback, Orchard Online’s design keeps practice and game activities distinct from each other, so that the student’s mastery of testing standards does not depend on his or her gaming skills.

Easy-to-Use Reports

One of the most important features of Orchard Online for teachers is its automated data management component. Not only does Orchard Online save teachers time and effort by generating and administering tests and practice activities—it also aggregates student performance data, analyzes it, and displays it in reports that show a teacher at a glance where the student is making progress and what standards he or she has yet to master. Orchard Online takes much of the mystery out of how to help students prepare for high-stakes tests—and helps teachers reclaim valuable class and planning time previously devoted to test prep and test prep support tasks.

Confidence-building Practice Items

In addition to being aligned to state testing standards and designed to mimic the format of state test questions, Orchard Online practice items incorporate lively content and a colorful contemporary design to keep students engaged. Immediate feedback is offered for each item—to reinforce skills that have been mastered and to review and clarify particularly challenging concepts. With the availability of Orchard Online 24 hours a day, seven days a week, students are able to automatically move forward to more difficult content or other content areas once skills have been refreshed and mastered. Students working at home after school or during the summer do not have to wait until the next school day or school year to be provided access to more pertinent practice. Orchard Online also allows a teacher to adjust a student’s mastery and practice frequency parameters to customize the practice experience for the student’s needs.

About Orchard Learning

Since the mid-1950s, Orchard Learning's Gamco division has developed educational materials for teachers and schools. To adapt to the needs of educators over time, Gamco began the development of educational software in the early 1980s to target essential skills. In the mid-1990s, the needs of schools were met by the development of Orchard, an educational software program that provides a total solution for schools. Additional releases of Orchard focused on assessing students’ knowledge of state standards, assigning the appropriate instructional content to address deficient areas, and providing reports that help teachers inform future instruction. Today, schools are focused on assessment-based outcomes, and Orchard Learning has partnered with Edumatics Corporation in the development of an online test prep program to help improve test scores.