Here are the answers to the most common questions. If your question isn't answered here, please contact us at customerservice@smartyants.com.

1. How does the Smarty Ants Reading World place my students at their appropriate level?

Upon entering Smarty Ants Reading World for the first time, students are taken to an initial assessment activity. Here they are assessed on their knowledge of letters, letter sounds, and words. Based on the results of this initial assessment students are placed at their appropriate level in the program.

2. How much time should my students spend in the Smarty Ants Reading World program?

The more time your students spend in Smarty Ants Reading World the better the results will be. We recommend that students spend at least 90 minutes a week using the program.

3. How does student choice and learning temperament impact the instruction they receive?

Although student choice and learning temperament are key components of the Smarty Ants Reading World program, they do not impact the level of instruction your students receive. The instruction level is determined by their initial assessment and successful progression through the scope and sequence of reading skills.

4. Will my student spend too much time engaged in the non-learning activities?

In order to maximize time in the interactive learning modules, student access to reward, or non-instructional activities, is limited. These special reward activities are only accessible after reaching certain benchmarks and are only available for a limited amount of time.

5. What size class or group of students do I need to effectively use the Smarty Ants Reading World program?

Smarty Ants Reading World is designed to be easily and effectively implemented with your entire district, school, or classroom but can be used with any number of students depending on your needs.

6. How can I use Smarty Ants Reading World to support instruction in my classroom?

• Real-time data for use in grouping students and targeting instruction
• Teacher’s Curriculum Guide provides support, activities, and extensions to foster and support offline learning
• Interactive teaching videos from the program are available for use in instruction and will work with your interactive whiteboard.
• Story printouts are ideal for reading groups and centers.
• Learning songs from the program can be downloaded for classroom use.
• Interactive Guided Practice pages provide additional skill application opportunities and can be accessed online or printed.

7. Are other literacy skills incorporated or does the program just teach reading?

Although the primary focus of the program is to teach reading, students are also taught how to correctly form each letter, there are 67 different vocabulary activities, and additional writing opportunities are available in the Interactive Guided Practice pages which accompany each lesson.

8. When my students move from one grade level to the next, can they continue to use the Smarty Ants  Reading World program?

Yes, as your students continue from one grade level to the next, their Smarty Ants Reading World account and all data associated with it can move with them.

9. How does Smarty Ants Reading World meet the needs of Special Education students?

Smarty Ants Reading World is adaptive to each student’s level, pace, and learning temperament. The program creates a truly personalized learning path for each student. The data reporting tools allow teachers to monitor and report progress in real time while providing the information needed to target instruction based on a student’s individualized needs.

10. Do I need a computer lab to effectively incorporate the Smarty Ants Reading World program into my schedule?

As long as your students have access to the internet with computers or tablets, whether in a lab or classroom setting, you can effectively implement the Smarty Ants Reading World program.

11. Does Smarty Ants Reading World work with a Mac Trackpad?

Yes, Smarty Ants is compatible with a Mac Trackpad. However, we do realize that because of its sensitivity and support for multi-touch gestures some children may have difficulty using it. Therefore we recommend disabling some multi-touch trackpad gestures that may accidentally interfere with game play, specifically the 2-finger "Swipe between pages" gesture. To disable this Trackpad gesture open Apple Menu -> System Preferences -> Trackpad -> More Gestures and uncheck the "Swipe between pages" option.