By Lynn Adamo
Since its debut a year ago, Lexia Learning’s Reading Core5 program has helped thousands of students nationwide tackle Core Content and PAARC with greater confidence. This year, it assumes a more cosmopolitan air thanks to a focus on English Language Learners (ELL) with the addition of tongues from all corners of the globe.
Native Vietnamese, Arabic, Mandarin, Haitian Creole and Portuguese speakers can now join others in building English proficiencies through expanded picture glossaries, activity guides and thematic flash cards, all artfully woven into Core5’s multilayered educational strategy.
A blended-learning approach, which melds the best of classroom and online tutelage, increases student engagement, oral language development and reading comprehension. It’s like a passport to the faraway.
“Core5 has a rich artistic theme,” commented Liz Brooke, Lexia Learning’s Chief Education Officer. “We want to help students unlock the world through reading by helping them learn more about the Amazon rainforest, learn more about Paris. We want to make (learning) more engaging.”
Core5 addresses development of oral language, reading, spelling and writing skills in leaners of all abilities, including ELL students, permitting them to develop foundational reading skills with the rest of their native English-speaking classmates. The program provides a high level of self- and teacher-directed personalized learning.
Blended learning also helps educators bring relevant online lessons into the classroom while seeing results in real time. It lets students track progress toward their personal goals and, once having mastered a specific lesson, move onto the next at his/her own pace.
“The online component is available immediately through the dashboard,” Brooke stated.
Core5 helps ELL students with beginner-level language and reading skills learn key comprehension strategies for listening, reading and phonics. Students with proficient language, but weak reading skills, can develop sophisticated vocabulary while learning to identify and use idioms, similes and metaphors.
Core5 offers these students personalized reading instruction and access to greater fluency, allowing them to trace their journeys around the world, view completed lessons and catch a glimpse of what lies ahead.
The approach seems to be working. Early data indicates ELL students are making the greatest gains with Core5. Among results from the 2014-2015 school year, 76 percent of high-risk students demonstrated mastery in two or more grade levels in Core5 and 34 percent of on-level students completed two or more grade levels of reading skills, ending the school year having completed the next grade-level benchmark.
Core5 further caters to teachers by making what they need to find intuitive and easily accessible.
“Our philosophy about assessment is simple,” Brook continued. “We want the most valid and reliable information to make educational decisions while minimizing the amount of time it takes to make those decisions.”
To learn more about how Core5 can help ELL students and the teachers who educate them, visit www.lexialearning.com.
