Thousands of Students Realize Dramatic Grade-Level Gains Learning With iLit, Pearson’s Tablet-Based Reading Intervention Program
Orlando, FL (PRWEB) January 21, 2015 -- Today at FETC 2015, Pearson announced that thousands students who are learning with iLit, the company’s digital reading intervention solution for grades 4-10, are realizing dramatic grade-level gains.
iLit is designed to meet the national crisis of students who simply cannot read at the appropriate grade level and who, by the time they reach high school, are dropping out, checking out or acting out. iLit is the first complete instructional solution built and delivered digitally that offers students personalized learning support based on their own instructional needs with engaging interactivities, and built-in reward systems that motivate and track progress.
iLit was launched two years ago at FETC. Today more than 25,000 students at 175 schools around the country are improving their literacy skills with the intervention program which is delivered via any iOS, Android, Windows 8 or web browser.
“When we visit schools around the country, it is powerful to see the ways that iLit is truly transforming the learning landscape for struggling readers,” said Doug McCollum, Pearson senior vice president and general manager for Accelerated Performance Solutions. “The approaches to implementing iLit are as diverse as the schools using it, but they are all realizing compelling improvements in literacy skills when students learn with the intervention program.”
The success of students at Highland Middle School in Anderson, Indiana, is illustrative of the way that iLit’s engaging and motivating environment is transforming learning. Beginning in 2013, 60 of the school’s sixth graders who were in need of intervention began learning with iLit. Milissa Crum, a general education teacher at the 1,500-student school uses the program every day with 51 sixth graders, nearly half of whom have individualized education programs and all of whom are at least two grades below level in reading. After just one year of learning with iLit, these students realized grade level gains ranging from two to six years. Today more than 360 Highland Middle School students learn with iLit.
In May 2014, Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz visited Highland to get a firsthand view of the reading intervention program. In an article in the local paper, “The Herald Bulletin,” Ritz commented on what she observed, "Reading programs such as iLit engage the children so that they're doing active reading...actually doing more reading and getting excited about it. That's probably the best piece about this."
At Southern High School in Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville, Kentucky, teachers introduced iLit to ninth graders at the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year. There iLit is used with all ninth-grade English classes and tenth-grade English special education resource classes. By the spring of 2014, the 140 students who learned with iLit saw grade level gains of more than two years. As a result, in 2014, the district expanded iLit to two other schools, T.T. Knight Middle School and Seneca High School in 2014.
Duval County Schools located in Jacksonville, Florida began using iLit in 20 high schools in the fall of 2013. The district has continued the use of iLit at the high school level and recently began expanding the program to select middle schools. Duval students who have been enrolled for the first half of the 2014 school year are already realizing grade level gains of up to two years.
And in Houston, Texas, three KIPP college prep high school campuses turned to iLit to achieve their mission of “preparing students in under-served communities for success in college and life.” The results mirror what is happening in the rest of the country: special education students who are learning 90 minutes a day with iLit are realizing grade level gains of more than two years in just a single year of instruction.
To learn more about iLit, visit http://www.redefiningliteracy.com.
About Pearson
As part of its overall commitment to literacy, Pearson recently launched Project Literacy, a major campaign dedicated to working in partnership with peers and communities to build a more literate world. Visit http://www.projectliteracy.com.
Pearson is the world’s leading learning company, with 40,000 employees in more than 80 countries working to help people of all ages to make measurable progress in their lives through learning. For more information about Pearson, visit http://www.pearson.com.
Media Contact: Brandon Pinette, brandon.pinette(at)pearson(dot)com, or (800) 745-8489
Brandon Pinette, Pearson, http://www.pearson.com, +1 (800) 745-8489, [email protected]
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