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Texas' Ridgegate Elementary Sticks with Digital Intervention Tools for Math and Literacy

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 04/25/13

A school in Texas has gone public with its use of a district-purchased set of products to help kids with their math and reading proficiency. Ridgegate Elementary in Fort Bend, TX began using computer-based curriculum from School Specialty's EPS Literacy and Intervention in the 2009-2010 school year.

Running the software through the district network, the EPS intervention applications being used at Ridgegate include:

• Academy of Reading, which works with students in grades 2-12 on phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension;
• Academy of Math, which is intended to help students build proficiency in 10 skill areas that align with standards set by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics;
• Explode the Code, a 30-year-old program available in workbooks and online that helps students with literacy skills, including phonological awareness, decoding, vocabulary, fluency, and spelling; and
• Wordly Wise 3000, for grades 2-12, an online program to help students with vocabulary.

"It is amazing the progress we've seen," says Principal Lavanta Williams, who joined the school last year. "This customized intervention solution really provided a foundation for us and helped fill in the gaps of what was missing in the classroom."

Added Reading Specialist Sandra Williams, "We have students who come in every year who struggle, who I feel like we have lost... and now that we have this very intense program--the Academy of READING--these students are able to read."

The company's software is also in use at Harrisburg High School in South Dakota, Ravenswood City School District in California, and River Oaks Middle School in North Carolina, among other schools and districts.