i-Ready: Accessibility and Accommodations Update
Curriculum Associates | August 2026
Overview
To make i-Ready accessible to the widest population of students, we offer a range of accessibility supports that may also meet the requirements of a number of student accommodations. This accessibility update is designed to provide educators with information about i-Ready's current accessibility supports, insight into our vision, and plans for future enhancements.
Dedicated to Creating Accessible Experiences
At Curriculum Associates, we believe every student has the potential for educational excellence. That’s why we’re dedicated to creating accessible materials that maximize usability for people with disabilities. We strive to ensure that accessibility and accommodation support considerations are incorporated into our product development process from the very beginning, and we’ve developed a continuous improvement approach to accessibility that ensures we’re always improving and learning.
Always Improving
Accessibility opportunities and expectations are continually evolving. To meet the needs of the students and districts we serve, we engage in ongoing work to evaluate and improve our educational tools and resources. We have developed a systematic approach to accessibility that includes:
- Using the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework guiding our accessibility efforts
- An internal team of universal access, curriculum, assessment, policy, and research experts who are dedicated to finding new ways for our educational tools and resources to be used by a wide range of learners
- A rigorous review process that involves outside accessibility experts to ensure our thinking and approach reflect established and evolving best practices
- Guidance and feedback from the school districts and educators we serve
In addition to the above, we have enlisted the help of student testers to evaluate the effectiveness of our accessibility enhancements. Our commitment to and work toward increased accessibility is ongoing. All of our accessibility efforts and enhancements are offered to educators at no additional cost as part of Curriculum Associates’ Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model.
i-Ready's Accessibility Supports and Accommodations
The following table contains information about accessibility features, English learner supports, and support for accommodations in i-Ready Personalized Instruction*, i-Ready Inform™**, i-Ready Growth Monitoring, i-Ready Standards Mastery, i-Ready Personalized Instruction in Spanish, i-Ready Inform de lectura (Grades K–6), i-Ready Assessment of Spanish Reading (Grades 7 and 8), i-Ready Inform de matemáticas, and i-Ready Growth Monitoring for Mathematics in Spanish. Supports and accommodations may not be available across all content areas, grades, and products.
*Throughout this page, the term “i-Ready Personalized Instruction” refers to both i-Ready lessons and i-Ready Pro lessons unless distinctions are explicitly named.
**i-Ready Inform™ is the new name for the adaptive assessment previously named “i-Ready Diagnostic.”
Universal Supports, Designated Supports, and Accommodations
| Universal Supports | Designated Supports | Accommodations |
|---|---|---|
| Available to all students, regardless of their disability status, English proficiency level, or any other type of documented need | Available for use by any student as determined by an educator familiar with the student’s characteristics and needs | Available to students in accordance with their IEP, 504, and/or English learner plans |
|
Embedded Embedded universal supports available within the i-Ready interface that require no additional configuration:
|
Embedded Audio support is available for i-Ready Inform for Mathematics Grades 6+ items and for i-Ready Inform for Reading items where universal audio support is not available. Audio support is available for Standards Mastery for Mathematics Grades 6+ items and for Standards Mastery for Reading Grades 2–8 items (coming late August 2026).10 Educators need to enable this feature. To learn more about audio support in i-Ready Inform, please refer to the Feature Overview: Audio Support. To learn more about audio support in i-Ready Standards Mastery, please refer to the i-Ready Standards Mastery Accessibility guidance document. |
Embedded Audio support is available for i-Ready Inform for Mathematics Grades 6+ items and for i-Ready Inform for Reading items where universal audio support is not available. Audio support is available for Standards Mastery for Mathematics Grades 6+ items and for Standards Mastery for Reading Grades 2–8 items (coming late August 2026).10 Educators need to enable this feature. To learn more about audio support in i-Ready Inform, please refer to the Feature Overview: Audio Support. To learn more about audio support in i-Ready Standards Mastery, please refer to the i-Ready Standards Mastery Accessibility guidance document. Educators have the ability to manually exempt students who are blind, low vision, deaf, or hard of hearing from foundational reading domains, such as Phonological Awareness, Phonics, and High-Frequency Words, due to the domains’ dependence on audio or visual content.* Educators can enable Tactile Graphic Support and use the Tactile Graphic Finder to provide students who are blind or have low vision with access to on-demand tactile graphics.11* |
|
Non-Embedded Non-embedded universal supports include:
|
Non-Embedded Educators can make the following non-embedded designated supports available to students outside of the i-Ready interface:
|
Non-Embedded Non-embedded accommodations are available to students outside of the i-Ready interface:
|
*i-Ready Inform only
**i-Ready Personalized Instruction only (Includes i-Ready Pro lessons)
1 Universal audio support (i.e., editorially vetted audio of text) is currently available in i-Ready Personalized Instruction either automatically or on demand by pressing audio buttons to support most of the text on screen across lessons. i-Ready Inform de lectura includes universal audio support in Phonics items for Grades K–3, Vocabulary items for Grades K and 1, Phonological Awareness items for Grades K and 1, and Comprehension items for Grade K. i-Ready Inform audio support is provided for Grades K–5 Mathematics items, Grades K–3 Foundational Skills and Vocabulary items, and Grade K Comprehension items. i-Ready Standards Mastery includes universal audio support for Grades 2–5 Mathematics items (coming late August 2026).
2 Audio descriptions: Students can enable audio descriptions of what is happening visually in the assessment Introductory Videos for Grades 3–5, in tool tutorials for Grades 6–12, and in passage videos by selecting the AD button. Audio descriptions are available in Introductory Videos for Grades 3–5 and tool tutorials for all grades in i-Ready Inform de lectura. This is part of a series of ongoing releases to add audio descriptions to i-Ready Inform videos. Audio descriptions are also available in all Reading Comprehension lessons for Grades 3–8, all Vocabulary Context Clue lessons, and all i-Ready Pro lessons in Foundational Skills, Core Numeracy, and Comprehension in which screen-reader support is available.
3 Keyboard navigation is currently available with documented exceptions in i-Ready assessments. In i-Ready Personalized Instruction, it is available in all Grades K–8 Comprehension lessons, in all Grades 3–5 Phonics and Vocabulary lessons, in Spanish Grades K and 1 Phonological Awareness lessons, in most Grades 3–5 Mathematics lessons, and in Grades 6–8 Mathematics lessons. Keyboard navigation is also available in i-Ready Pro lessons in Grades 6–8, except for i-Ready Pro lessons in Early Core Numeracy and a small subset of Elevate Lessons in Mathematics. Additional domains and grades will be added on an ongoing basis. Please refer to the Feature Overview: Keyboard Navigation to learn about relevant exceptions.
4 Contrast requirements: In i-Ready Assessment, we are compliant with WCAG 2.1 Level AA requirements with documented exceptions. All i-Ready Personalized Instruction lessons created after July 2019 adhere to WCAG 2.0 Level AA requirements for contrast. For lessons created before July 2019, we are compliant with WCAG 2.0 Level AA contrast in many places, but the exceptions have not been extensively documented. For the majority of lessons, global lesson navigation controls (i.e., buttons for backward/forward, pause, settings, and the progress bar) now adhere to WCAG 2.1 Level AA requirements for contrast.
5 Closed captioning is available on all i-Ready Inform interactive and non-interactive tutorials for Grades K–2, the tutorials and i-Ready Inform Introductory Videos for Grades 3+, and in all i-Ready Inform, Growth Monitoring, and i-Ready Inform de lectura videos embedded in passages. In i-Ready Personalized Instruction, closed captioning is available in English for English lessons and in Spanish for Spanish lessons. 100 percent of My Path lessons for Grades K–8 and i-Ready Pro lessons for Grades 6–8 have closed captioning and/or text on screen. A small percentage of extra lessons (i.e., lessons that can be assigned by teachers but never show in the automated My Path queues) will still have closed-captioning exceptions. To learn more, please refer to the Feature Overview: Closed Captioning.
6 Digital Math Tools are available on specific items or lessons.
7 Glossary definitions and Spanish translations for academic vocabulary and key terms are available in i-Ready Personalized Instruction lessons except for i-Ready Pro lessons. This feature is not available in i-Ready Assessment.
8 Presentation of material for age-appropriate pedagogy and legibility includes the use of clear, concise, chronological directions, student-friendly fonts, easily legible formatting, graphic organizers, pacing/engagement controls such as chunking of texts, and “slow down” timers.
9 Reflow applies to i-Ready Inform, i-Ready Inform de lectura, i-Ready Standards Mastery, i-Ready Pro’s Essential Lessons in Comprehension, Foundational Skills, and Core Numeracy, and i-Ready Pro’s Elevate Lessons in Reading.
10 Due to differences in state and local policies related to audio support, we offer read-aloud support nationally as both a designated support and an accommodation. Educators can enable it for students in the platform. Educators should reference a student’s 504, IEP, and/or English learner plan to determine what accommodations are appropriate and/or use other documented needs to determine what designated supports are appropriate. For both documented supports and accommodations, educators should ensure they are referencing and adhering to their state and district policies around the provision of that support or accommodation. Reports will indicate whether read-aloud support was made available to a student, but i-Ready will not track/indicate if it was used as a designated support or an accommodation.
11 There are some instances when a student may request or require a tactile graphic to access a test item. Because i-Ready Inform is a computer-adaptive assessment, notification about the need for a tactile graphic for specific items cannot be provided in advance. This guidance brief offers information about how to use the Tactile Graphic Finder, a custom tactile graphic library, to provide students with standardized, ready-to-emboss tactile materials on demand. Please note, while the Tactile Graphic Support setting and Tactile Graphic Finder are embedded in the i-Ready interface, embossed tactiles are provided to students as a non-embedded accommodation.
12 We have not tested the use of third-party built-in operating system magnification software extensively for compatibility across browser platform combinations. Educators may find the following resources helpful: For PCs | For Macs® | For iPads® | For Chromebooks™
13 Screen-reader support is available for all Comprehension lessons in English for Grades 3–8, in Vocabulary Context Clue lessons in English for Grades 3–8, in all i-Ready Pro’s Essential Lessons in Comprehension, Foundational Skills, and Core Numeracy, and in i-Ready Pro’s Elevate Lessons in Reading. Please reference additional information about i-Ready Personalized Instruction screen-reader support and refreshable braille displays. In most i-Ready assessments, screen readers can be used to respond to most items with documented exceptions. In i-Ready Inform, i-Ready Inform de lectura, i-Ready Standards Mastery, and i-Ready Growth Monitoring, exceptions include some tech-enhanced item types, and students may require additional assistance when they encounter items with complicated visual stimuli such as graphs and figures. In i-Ready Standards Mastery, alt text is now available in the majority of items with images or graphics. In the i-Ready Assessment of Spanish Reading, alt text is available where needed.
Mac® and iPad® are registered trademarks of Apple, Inc. Chromebook™ is a distinct brand feature of Google, LLC.
i-Ready Assessment: Always Improving
Our top priority is to design and develop our assessments to be without characteristics that could interfere with students’ test-taking experiences. This is essential not only from the perspective of the student but also to ensure that educators are provided with validly obtained assessment data to make informed inferences about student performance.14
Assessment Item Development Process
Although educators and students are most likely to notice the i-Ready accessibility features used during the administration of an assessment, evidence of our commitment to accessibility begins long before students sit down to take the assessment. Specifically, i-Ready assessments are built from the ground up to incorporate key characteristics that make the assessments accessible. Our team incorporates industry-standard design principles throughout every step of the assessment development process.
Moving Forward
We are committed to ongoing improvements to usability, accessibility features, and accommodations across our assessment products. These efforts include:
- Usability updates informed by internal and external accessibility and UDL advisors, and our internal Usability Testing team.
- Read-aloud support will be available for i-Ready Standards Mastery for the 2026–2027 school year.
- Leveraging the systems already launched for the i-Ready Inform Tactile Graphics Finder, we will continue working with the American Printing House for the Blind to build fully interactive tactile experiences for i-Ready Inform via the Monarch refreshable braille display.
i-Ready and the WCAG
Your partner success manager or educational sales consultant will be happy to provide you with up-to-date information on i-Ready and WCAG. Please contact them for details.
14American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, & National Council on Measurement in Education. (2014). Standards for educational and psychological testing. American Educational Research Association.
i-Ready Personalized Instruction: Always Improving
Consistent with our approach to i-Ready Assessment, we have an ongoing vision for i-Ready Personalized Instruction that includes continual evaluation and application of research-based principles. Our focus is on improving our collection of existing lessons and proactively creating new lessons with accessibility features such as keyboard navigation, closed captioning, and visual design from the outset.
UDL
The Center for Applied Special Technology defines the UDL as a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. The framework was designed to “change the design of the environment rather than to change the learner,” and the curriculum designers of i-Ready Personalized Instruction are guided by the UDL’s key principles of providing students with appropriate options for engagement, representation, action, and expression.15
English/Multilingual Learners
Our i-Ready curriculum supports English learners in acquiring language through reading. Guided by recommendations from ELSF, Curriculum Associates creates our content taking into consideration whether students are newcomers to US schools, students with limited or interrupted formal education, or long-term English learners.
Moving Forward
Our goals for enhanced accessibility supports are outlined below. Please note that these are forecasts of future work. Given the extensive level of interactivity, volume and variety of lessons, unique question types, and level of instructional support, accessibility improvements to online lessons are on a multiyear timeline. While we always do our best to present accurate information, the planning and content of our accessibility timeline may be subject to change.
- Visual design enhancements: Our design team will continue to apply WCAG visual design requirements (i.e., for minimum contrast and use of color) from the start in all new lesson development, as they have since fall 2019. Additionally, we have updated our global navigation controls (i.e., forward/backward buttons) to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA criteria for minimum contrast for the majority of lessons.
- Keyboard access and screen-reader support will expand to additional grades and domains on an ongoing basis. For example, we plan to expand keyboard access and screen-reader support to Grades K–2 Reading lessons and reflow to Grades K–5 Reading lessons within school year 2027–2028.
- We will continue to engage with our external accessibility partners and advisors to help us consider the best ways to balance pedagogical needs with developing technology to ensure content is presented in an age-appropriate and accessible way. The influence of such partnerships is evident in i-Ready Pro’s Essential Lessons and i-Ready Pro’s Elevate Lessons in Comprehension, which include reflow. We are now exploring ways to apply this approach to other grades and domains.
15CAST. (2020). Frequently asked questions. UDL Guidelines. http://udlguidelines.cast.org/more/frequently-asked-questions
Contact Us
In everything we do at Curriculum Associates, our award-winning Partner Success team is at the foundation of our success. If your district has any suggestions or product enhancement ideas for how we can improve our accessibility efforts, we would love to hear from you. Please contact your district’s partner success manager or i-Ready Partner, and they will be happy to forward your ideas to our product team or answer any questions you have about our existing offerings.