Lexia Learning Systems® today announced that all elementary schools in San Jose Unified School District (Calif.) will be using Lexia Reading® for English literacy as schools open their doors this month. The decision by district administrators follows a successful pilot program of the technology-based reading program.
“One of our district’s key strategies to accomplish our mission is to individualize learning to help students accelerate learning and close the opportunity gap,” said Jason Willis, assistant superintendent, community engagement and accountability. “Lexia Reading will have an indelible impact on the education of our children by providing individualized, independent learning for students and supporting rigorous, teacher-led instruction.”
Lexia Reading offers a scalable, research-supported approach that provides educators norm-referenced measures that prioritize the students who are the most at-risk, and recommends teacher-led, direct skill instruction to address specific skill gaps. As students work independently on Lexia Reading, they receive structured practice on foundational reading skills. The engaging software provides scaffolded learning, advancing students to higher levels as they demonstrate proficiency. Each of the age-appropriate, skill-specific activities in Lexia Reading conforms to federal guidelines and is aligned to the Common Core State Standards.
“We were looking for a program that delivered rigorous literacy and higher order thinking skills early on in our students’ academic life,” said Jodi Lax, San Jose director, curriculum, instruction and EL services, Pre-K–5. “ Lexia helps our teachers identify struggling students and then provides them with data-driven, instructional action plans needed to close the achievement gaps that very day, not weeks or months later. In our pilot implementation, we found that the schools using Lexia Reading as directed have shown the greatest amounts of growth.”
Lexia Reading provides individualized learning, which is both student-driven and teacher-led, as well as norm-referenced performance data without interrupting the flow of instruction to administer a test. This approach, known as Assessment Without Testing®, automatically provides educators with real-time data on students’ specific skill gaps. The program then identifies and prioritizes students for small group or individual instruction, providing teachers and intervention specialists with targeted instructional strategies and structured lesson plans, including the minutes-per-week of software usage each student needs in order to improve performance on grade-level assessments.
Based on skill level and rate of progress in the program, Lexia Reading predicts each student’s chance of reaching an end-of-year benchmark. These norm-referenced measures are correlated to, and predictive of, student outcomes on other commonly used measures such as DIBELS® and AIMSweb®. The data interface is accessible via browser or iPad® and iPhone® apps.
