New Progress Monitoring Tools Offer Unprecedented Assessment Without Testing™;  Aggregate Student Performance Analyzed Locally and Compared Against National Sample for Concrete Measures of Reading Skills

June 22, 2010 — Concord, Mass. — Imagine reading instruction without always having to stop and test the students. Envision students advancing themselves through content-rich, level-appropriate reading lessons at an individual pace for a truly customized learning experience. Picture teachers who are informed of student reading progress on a daily basis with comparisons to classmates, schoolmates, and peers throughout the district and across the country. Welcome to the future of reading education. Welcome to Lexia Reading® Version 7.0, from Lexia Learning.

Scheduled to be unveiled at next week’s annual International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Conference in Denver, this advanced version of Lexia’s scientifically based, highly acclaimed software features new progress monitoring tools that will give educators longitudinal, standards-based data on students’ mastery of reading skills. This approach to instruction and assessment marks an industry transition from criterion-based reports to the use of a national data set that draws comparisons among students under a common set of benchmarks. These new reports will provide ongoing progress monitoring data that will guide educators in making decisions around intensity and duration of instruction/intervention within a Response to Intervention (RTI) model. Developed over a three-year period, Lexia Reading Version 7.0 will dramatically reduce the need for traditional testing.

“We believe that Lexia Reading Version 7.0 is one of the disruptive technologies shaping the future of reading education,” said Nick Gaehde, CEO of Lexia Learning. “Educators no longer subscribe to the core/supplemental paradigm; instead opting for a flexible structure with technology and data at the center of instruction. With this release of Lexia Reading, teachers and administrators now have an essential component of their reading curriculum providing real-time assessment and an accurate, detailed picture of where each student stands at any given moment. This technology allows them to adjust their instruction based on students’ needs without stopping the flow of learning to test and retest over the course of weeks or perhaps, months.”

Widely implemented district-wide as an essential component of reading instruction, Lexia Reading Version 7.0 is SIF certified and is among a small group of reading software products that can be deployed throughout the district in a seamless manner. This allows administrators to more effectively leverage Lexia Reading’s robust performance data across the district.

Lexia Reading offers age-appropriate support for critical reading skills development for all students in grades
pre-K–4, as well as for students in grades 4-12 needing to accelerate their reading skills progress. The simple, yet automatically differentiated content assignments include more than 900 activities. Each of the age-appropriate, skill-specific activities conforms to federal guidelines and focuses on the five major areas of reading instruction. Students using the Web-based program work independently as the software automatically detects when additional practice is needed; advancing students to the next level when skills have been mastered. The enhanced reporting and management in Lexia Reading quickly identifies students at risk for reading failure and highlights specific skill deficits. Teachers and administrators alike will benefit from the software’s improved ability to aggregate student performance data and display progress reports in reading from individual students to entire districts.

“The Department of Education’s 2010 National Educational Technology Plan has set the goals for instruction to be engaging, motivating and customized and for assessment to be technology-driven, embedded in the course of learning, and designed to identify students’ individual abilities and skill gaps,” said Gaehde. “Aligned with this ¬¬¬ federal mandate, Lexia Reading is one of the programs that will lead the way in revolutionizing classroom learning.”

For more information about Lexia Reading, visit www.lexialearning.com/products.

About Lexia Learning
Lexia Learning Systems, Inc., headquartered in Concord, Massachusetts, is one of the most highly regarded reading software companies in the nation. Established in 1984, the company provides a flexible, Web-enabled technology that is scientifically based and proven to increase reading proficiency in students at all levels of ability, pre-K to adult. Today, Lexia’s programs, including its flagship product, Lexia Reading, are used as an essential part of reading instruction in more than 13,000 schools nationwide, and have helped more than one million students learn to read. In 2009, Lexia Reading was recognized as one of only 10 programs to have ever been deemed to show effectiveness in two or more Beginning Reading Skills categories by the What Works Clearinghouse. To learn more about Lexia, please visit www.lexialearning.com or call 1-800-435-3942.

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