PBS Kids is launching two new literacy programs for preschool beginning in early September--Super WHY! and WordWorld--as part of its Ready To Learn initiative for kids aged 2 to 8. The goal of the initiative, aimed especially toward students from low-income families, is to provide the tools young learners will need to acquire reading skills.
The Weekly Reader Publishing group and school technology provider HareBrain have partnered to launch the Learn to Read: Beginning Reading Program, which provides students in preschool through first grade with reading kits, including HareBrain's WhisperPhone line of devices designed to help students read.
- By Michelle Rutledge
- 08/21/07
Four districts in Georgia are gearing up to deploy Ombudsman Educational Services for the fall. OES, from Educational Services of America, is a program designed for students who have been expelled, who have behavioral problems, or who are otherwise deemed right for alternative education. It's targeted toward middle- and high-school students.
El Paso Independent School District will implement an online intervention curriculum from Plato Learning, a developer of K-12 and adult education e-learning solutions. The new content will provide online credit recovery and state test remediation courses to 15 secondary schools in the district, with plans for additional implementation in the future.
Curriculum developer AbleNet has launched a new service called AbleNet Student Achievement Program, a suite that includes curricula, assistive technologies, and professional development for special education.
Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, a unit of the McGraw-Hill School Solutions Group, has released a new program for English language learners in grades K through 6: Treasure Chest, a research-based language and literacy curriculum that combines interactive activities with traditional teaching tools.
The Pennsylvania Department of Education has received a five-year grant totaling about $6.4 million to help fund training and retention efforts for teachers and staff supporting special education.
Eduspark this month signed a deal with multimedia delivery provider BroadRamp to provide its content for English language learners (ELL) over the Internet. Eduspark provides dual-language immersive education programs for K-8 and previously delivered its content through instructional DVDs. With the new deal, most of the company's content will also come through the Internet.
Research firm SRI International said it's working on a project to "synthesize research and provide practice guidelines to inform and improve special education reform efforts for the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC)...." WWC is a project overseen by the United States Department of Education. RI is a subcontractor on the project, working with Mathematica Policy Research, which is presently operating under a $50.3 million contract with DOE to expand WWC.
English as a second language (ESL) startup AppleESL.com (Hollywood, CA) has unveiled a new ESL Web portal of the same name, which provides teachers and students with online and downloadable tools, materials, activity templates, lesson plans, and audio and video files.