Two sixth-grade students in Ms. Sarah Davis’ ELA WINN (What I Need Now) class were recognized for their exceptional achievement in a recent IXL challenge.

Dominique Banks and Estiven Baquedano both exceeded the challenge goal by correctly answering more than 200 IXL questions focusing on ELA text-based learning. Dominique accurately answered 274 questions, while Estiven correctly completed 255.

“Their dedication, perseverance, and commitment to learning truly set them apart,” Ms. Davis said.

As a reward for their hard work, both students earned the opportunity to use flex seating of their choice for the week and select a book from the school’s book vending machine, which was dedicated late last month.

Estiven said it was fun to use the book machine, a sentiment echoed by Dominique who stated: “The challenge was cool, and being able to use the book machine was amazing! It gave us encouraging words as we used our coin.”

The book vending machine helps promote literacy, rewards positive behavior, and hopes to inspire a love of reading among Liberty Middle School students.

IXL Leaderboards are friendly competitions built into IXL, a website used by Liberty Middle School, that can track progress on things such as total questions answered, number of skills mastered or proficient and time spent learning.

Teachers can customize what the competition is based on when they set it up to motivate students. Leaderboards show student or class rankings in real time, which can make learning feel like a game or a challenge to climb the ranks.

These may be individual or team/class-based competitions depending on what the teacher sets.

Students can check their current ranking via their IXL dashboard, which updates as they work. The dashboard also shows progress toward awards, goals, and other accomplishments.

“Congratulations to Dominique and Estiven on this well-deserved accomplishment!” Ms. Davis said. “We are incredibly proud of their efforts and continued growth.”