ITASCA, Ill., Nov. 19, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Riverside Insights, a leading provider of research-backed assessments, today announced new AI-supported planning features across its classroom solutions. The updates advance Riverside’s mission to bring clarity to PreK to 12 classrooms by helping educators act on student needs with confidence.

Educators continue to face widening skill gaps and rising instructional demands. Many students remain behind in core areas, and districts are looking for ways to personalize learning so educators can respond to individual needs more effectively. Yet teachers often lack the time to interpret data or build tailored plans on their own. Riverside Insights designed its new tools to lighten that load on educators and provide clear guidance that reflects each student’s learning profile.

“AI has the potential to personalize learning in ways we have only imagined, but none of this will matter without real insight,” said Vivek Kartha, CEO of Riverside Insights. “Personalization without understanding is just noise. Our role is to help educators use assessments to pinpoint student needs, and then empower them to act. When AI is used to translate insights that are grounded in the day-to-day realities teachers and students face, it becomes a way to reach people more effectively with better information at the moment they need it.”

Built on Insight, From Data to Action

For decades, Riverside Insights’ assessments have provided districts with science-based measures of reasoning, cognitive development, communication skills, early learning, achievement and student well-being. These tools help educators understand early learners, multilingual learners, students receiving specialized services, advanced learners and students preparing for new academic paths.

By adding AI-supported planning to its solutions, Riverside Insights is giving teachers faster ways to apply those insights in real classrooms. The company’s goal is to keep the focus on clarity, accuracy and meaningful use rather than novelty.

New Planning Features Across Key Products

Riverside Insights introduced AI-supported updates to three widely used classroom assessments. Each update is designed to reduce friction for teachers and give them a direct path from data to instructional action.

• CogAT Next Step Planning Tool
  CogAT measures how students reason with verbal, quantitative and nonverbal information to reveal their learning strengths and cognitive profiles. It now groups students by reasoning strengths, generates differentiated instructional strategies and activities and integrates with professional learning resources. Teachers receive immediate, data-informed guidance aligned with their goals.
• DESSA Insights+
  DESSA measures resilience and key social and behavioral skills that influence student well-being and support academic progress. An AI-supported widget embedded within the DESSA System now gives teachers concise summaries of student data and guides them to the most relevant parts of the platform. It helps educators interpret results more confidently and navigate the system with greater ease.
• ESGI Parent Letter Enhancements
  ESGI measures foundational early learning and developmental skills to help teachers understand where young students need targeted support. Two new optional features improve communication and support at home. The AI-Powered Student Action Plan provides student-specific commentary and at-home activities based on current results. Multilingual translation renders narrative content in a family’s preferred language across twenty-three languages at launch.
  

These updates reflect Riverside Insights’ continued investment in responsible, research-informed innovation that preserves educator trust while increasing usability across classrooms.

“The needs of students have never been greater,” said Kartha. “Learning loss has not simply gone away, and in many communities the gaps have grown wider. Teachers see this every day and they are doing everything they can, but they are stretched thin and need support. Insight is what allows us to understand who a student is, what they are ready for and where they are struggling. Without that understanding, technology alone will fall short.”

District leaders and educators can learn more about Riverside Insights’ classroom solutions and explore the new AI-supported features by visiting www.riversideinsights.com.

About Riverside Insights

Riverside Insights is a leading provider of trusted, research-backed assessments that bring the clarity needed to help every student grow. With 14 million students assessed annually, Riverside Insights’ tools pinpoint every student’s unique needs and reveal what each learner needs next. The company supports early learners, multilingual learners, gifted learners and students receiving specialized services through psychometrically rigorous and clinically validated assessments that measure cognitive abilities, reasoning, communication, early development and life skills. Riverside Insights equips educators to support every learner with confidence through independent, curriculum-agnostic tools designed to guide effective instruction and promote meaningful growth. For more information, visit https://riversideinsights.com/.

Media Contact:

Gena Ritter

gritter@wearecsg.com