River City Readers get new reading app to track their 'adventure'

Mayor Donna Deegan has launched the next chapter of her River City Readers literacy initiative — a new app developed by Duval County Public Schools.

At the program's end-of-summer reading party at Pablo Creek Regional Library, she also announced the latest top readers — Sophia Lynn Vause, 7; Leia Tobias, 4; and Ezra Yi, 5 — and a "major milestone" for the program. Since its 2024 launch, Jacksonville families have collectively logged about 3 million minutes of reading.

"Every minute our kids spend reading is an investment in their future, and Jacksonville families have invested more than 3 million of them," Deegan said. "That tells me our city understands that literacy is the foundation of opportunity."

Students in tradional and charter schools

will now log their reading minutes through a new app called PageHive, which is on the Duval County Public Schools website at pagehive.duvalschools.org and accessible on cell phones and computers. Every student gets a personalized dashboard and "a virtual bookshelf" to track books they've read and are reading and to rate them.

"PageHive puts the joy of reading right at our students' fingertips," Duval County Public Schools Superintendent Christopher Bernier said. "When a student can build their own bookshelf, rate the books they love and watch their minutes add up, reading stops feeling like an assignment and starts feeling like an adventure."

PageHive will provide reading-minute totals by student, teacher, grade level and school. Teachers can can add titles to their students' dashboards. Private and homeschooled students will continue to log their reading minutes through Beanstack.

For more information about River City Readers, go to jacksonville.gov/mayor/initiatives/river-city-readers.

Beth Reese Cravey has been a reporter for The Florida Times-Union for 45 years, currently specializing in nonprofits and health. She can be reached at [e-mail].

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: River City Readers get new reading app to track their 'adventure'