ELA Solos are reading activities for students to complete independently. Most Solos have students work with a text that will be examined more thoroughly in the next lesson. Nearly every lesson ends with a Solo. In the Materials section of each Unit Guide, you can find printable Solos, Solo Text Previews in English and Spanish, and the Solos Answer Keys.

Learn more about Solos:

In most Solos, students read a passage and answer questions designed to draw their attention to important details and develop their familiarity with a range of question types.

Solo reading passages are independent readings related to the subsequent lessons that enhance your student’s knowledge and assess their understanding. Solos are designed to give you a more accurate measure of each student’s individual reading comprehension.

Solo reading activities are designed for students to complete independently before the next class.

You can find the list of Solos in your Reading and Writing Assignment charts. Essential Solos have an asterisk next to them to help you plan your lessons and student activities. Essential Solos are the Solos that are most essential to your students’ ability to complete activities in a subsequent lesson. Only assigning Essential Solos would mean that students may not read the entirety of certain texts.

You have three options for sharing a Solo with students:

PDF Solos represent a print format version of the Solos in the corresponding digital Lessons. You can find the printable PDFs of Lesson Solos in the Unit Overview Materials. Printable Solos include writing activities and multiple choice activities to reinforce the lesson. The activities in each lesson vary, and are based on the digital lesson as much as possible to give students a similar experience.

Note: Certain digital Lessons do not have Solos, and others do not have Solos that can be re-created in a print format.

Example of a PDF Solo 1:

Example of a PDF Solo 2:

Mobile Solos allow students to access Solos outside of class without a computer or printer. Students can complete their Solos or Mobile Solos on a supported smartphone by visiting apps.learning.amplify.com/mobile-solos/. Mobile Solos can also be found in the curriculum navigation with other ELA apps, but because the curriculum is not optimized for smartphones, it is recommended that smartphone users type or paste the site address into their browser to access Mobile Solos.

Mobile Solo content is the same as on the Amplify curriculum app, including differentiated content and reading passages. All Solo responses submitted on a mobile device will automatically sync with the digital curriculum, so students receive automatic scoring and can pick up where they left off on a Solo on another device. Teachers receive data on student performance with the automatic sync.

Students can navigate to a Solo by selecting a unit, sub-unit, and lesson. The last program, unit, and sub-unit the student was working in are automatically displayed in Mobile Solos.

Mobile Solos can be accessed on smartphones (iPhone 6 and later running iOS 11+ with Safari or Samsung Galaxy 7 and later running Android 8+ with Chrome) with online access through a wifi network or a data plan.

Most content displays best in portrait view, though in some cases, landscape may be a better experience. Students should flip their device if the content is not displayed as they like.

PCs and tablets can also access Mobile Solos, though some content may not display as expected since the app is designed for use on smartphones. For the best experience, PC and tablet users should complete Solos using the curriculum app.

Mobile Solos can be saved to a phone's home screen so that it can be accessed like an app. To do that, you or your students must be using the device's supported browser (Safari for iOS, Chrome for Android). For both Android and iOS devices, the Add to Home Screen option is available in the same menu as the bookmark options.

When Mobile Solos is opened from the home screen icon, the browser's navigation elements will not appear. Users exit the app like they would exit a native app on their device. Deleting Mobile Solos from the home screen will not delete any of the student’s work.

To see Mobile Solos in action, check out this video overview.

In "Write an Essay" sub-units, teachers can choose to have students work on their essays in the curriculum app instead of completing a Solo. If students will be working on their essays at home, teachers will need to ensure they have access to their writing through the curriculum app or a paper copy of their essay.

Mobile Solos and Solos submitted through the curriculum app can be reviewed in Classwork. Teachers can leave feedback and grade Mobile Solos just like they would Solos submitted from the curriculum app. You can use the Solos: Answer Keys printable PDF in the Year Overview Materials section to grade printable Solos. Amplify ELA Print users may wish to have students use Mobile Solos to take advantage of autoscoring as well as the resulting data in the Classwork and Reporting apps.

You can find additional data about your students’ Solo performance in the Comprehension Report, which can be found in the Reporting App.