Lexia Learning®, a Rosetta Stone®company, has won a $500,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Literacy Courseware Challenge to support the creation and testing of a writing component that will be added to the newly released Lexia Reading Core5™ program. Scheduled for Beta release in the fall of 2014, the proposed Lexia Reading Core5 Writing Solution™ will address the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for writing and support writing instruction for students in grades four and five who are performing on or below their grade level as well as remedial students in grades six through eight performing below a fifth-grade level.
The new writing component will contain a series of online activities that help students to develop the critical connection between deep reading and writing. Each unit includes three tasks focused on distinct components of the writing process:
- Answering targeted questions in order to identify and highlight key text structure elements and applying note-taking strategies.
- Organizing the key elements into a framework that will serve as a scaffold for writing.
- Drafting, editing, revising and publishing using different tools in a multi-step, scaffolded process.
The written pieces can be used in digital or print form for editing and small group instruction. Students will also publish their work to an online newsstand that can be shared with classmates, parents and teachers.
