Education

66 percent of fourth-graders are reading below grade level Dept of Education study finds.

HISPANICVISTA - April 30, 2001 - The recent release of the U.S. Education Department's reading "Report Card,'' documented a crisis in education -- 66 % of fourth graders are reading below grade level, with the weakest ones falling further behind.

To help narrow this ever-widening reading achievement gap, Scholastic Inc., the global children's publishing and education company, announced the launch of Scholastic Summer School Reading Program(TM), a highly motivating and effective program to help America's struggling readers achieve reading success.

Scholastic Summer School Reading Program, an intensive six-week reading program, helps to raise scores and provides basic skills instruction for at-risk readers. Built on extensive research, the program directly addresses essential reading proficiencies and informs teaching with weekly assessments, making the most of every minute of summer school. For educators, the program follows a sound instructional cycle of teach, practice, and apply, providing a daily schedule of skills-specific activities and components to support reading success through:
     * Direct instruction practiced and reinforced through whole class and small groups

* A minute-by minute schedule that maximizes the time in each day, providing built in management tips and intervention strategies

     * High-interest libraries of authentic literature

"New studies show that America's lowest performing students are falling even further behind in reading,'' said Julie McGee, Executive Vice President Educational Publishing, Scholastic Inc. "This year, thousands of children will be heading to summer school in great need of mastering basic reading skills within a short period of time. Scholastic Summer School Reading Program effectively addresses the issues facing struggling readers and provides much-needed support to summer school teachers and school districts across the country who are urgently seeking motivating programs that help to build skills and raise test scores to close the achievement gap.''

Scholastic Summer School Reading Program builds a dynamic combination of essential reading skills:

     * Reading comprehension

     * Phonics and fluency

     * Vocabulary and word study

     * Writing and grammar

     * Listening and speaking

     * Plus English Language Development

In addition, for many struggling students, standardized tests are a stumbling block to success. Scholastic Summer School Reading Program helps build test-taking confidence and competence through daily practice with test-like questions, weekly test assessment, a pre-test to diagnose need and a post-test to monitor progress.

McGee continued: "We at Scholastic take seriously our responsibility to address the ever-widening reading achievement gap facing this country, and continue to develop reading improvement programs like Scholastic Summer School Reading Program that address the individual needs of all children.''

Scholastic Summer School Reading Program Components: The six-week program includes: 4-color Student Workbooks, Fluency Cards, Reading Skills Cards, Phonics Instruction, a comprehensive, accessible Teacher Edition which includes minute-by-minute schedule options, Classroom Libraries of instructional, independent and read aloud books, as well as an Assessment Guide that provides weekly and pre/post tests. Bookmarks and poster provide selection and reading support.

Scholastic has an 80-year history of addressing the reading needs of K-8 educators and students. The company focuses its educational publishing efforts on its fast-growing research-based reading improvement instructional materials consisting of intervention, technology, phonics, early childhood, extended learning and summer school programs, which help students overcome reading problems and achieve higher test scores.

Scholastic's reading improvement programs hold market leadership positions with Read 180(TM), Scholastic Read XL(TM) and WiggleWorks®, and the introduction of its effective Scholastic Phonics Reading(TM), Scholastic Reading Counts(TM) and Building Language for Literacy(TM) programs. Scholastic has a significant long-term educational presence in schools with supplementary materials such as classroom magazines, paperback libraries, and professional books for teachers, Grolier nonfiction children's books for libraries, as well as core curriculum reading improvement products.

Scholastic is the world's largest publisher and distributor of children's books. A global children's publishing and media company serving the needs of parents, teachers, and children, Scholastic provides proprietary book and software distribution through school book clubs, school book fairs and to classrooms, as well as through the retail trade. Since 1920, Scholastic has created quality educational materials for schools and has expanded its reach to include the distribution of books, software, toys, online learning services and television programming directly to the home. Scholastic recently acquired Grolier, the leading print and online publisher of children's reference materials and the leader in children's direct to home book clubs.

Internationally, Scholastic operates wholly owned companies in Argentina, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, The Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and the United Kingdom. The U.S. Scholastic web site http://www.scholastic.com is a leading provider of educational services online for parents, teachers and children.