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For Immediate Release
Voyager Passport K-3 Approved for Reading First
by Maryland State Department of Education
BALTIMORE, December 1, 2005 – Voyager Expanded Learning ® announced today that the Maryland State Department of Education approved Voyager Passport ™ -- a reading intervention program for elementary grades -- as the top supplemental and intervention program for use in the state’s Reading First schools for grades K-3. Voyager Passport rated above 18 other programs for its effectiveness in teaching critical skills and strategies that children must acquire to become successful readers.
Voyager Passport accelerates the performance of struggling readers and rapidly moves them to grade-level expectations by immediately identifying struggling readers, providing targeted reading instruction in key skills, and monitoring progress until intervention is no longer needed. Voyager Passport is the only program approved by the Maryland State Department of Education that addresses all five essential components of reading as outlined in No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) legislation and Reading First guidelines across all four grades (K-3), which include phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.
NCLB established Reading First as a high-quality, evidence-based program for students in kindergarten through third grade. The rigorous reading initiative builds on a solid foundation of research and is designed to select, implement and provide scientifically based reading programs and professional development for teachers using the programs. The initiative also ensures accountability through ongoing, valid and reliable screening, diagnostic and classroom-based assessment.
Voyager Passport has been successful reaching retained students in Baltimore City Public Schools. After using Voyager Passport during the 2004-05 school year, 67-88 percent of the first through fifth grade students who were held back were no longer struggling readers in part because they were highly engaged with the curriculum. “Before Passport, these students shut reading out; they shied away from it,” said Natalie Shephard, a fifth grade instructional support teacher at Edgewood Elementary in Baltimore. “But, now they see themselves building their fluency and retelling skills and it gives them the confidence to say, ‘I want to go first. I want to read.’”
According to an independent review done by the Florida Center for Reading Research, “The content, strategies, and instructional design of Voyager Passport are consistent with scientifically based reading research.” Voyager Passport has also been reviewed and included on several other state lists in the supplemental and intervention programs categories.
Voyager Passport is currently used in more than 500 districts across the United States.
About Voyager Expanded Learning
Voyager Expanded Learning provides core, intervention and supplemental reading programs, as well as math intervention programs, and ongoing professional development programs for school districts throughout the United States. The Voyager Universal Literacy System ® is the only core reading program patented for its “method and system for preventing illiteracy.” Founded in 1994, Voyager has delivered extended-time reading and basic skills intervention programs, as well as large-scale reading programs, to more than 1,000 school districts in cities such as Dallas, Phoenix, New York, Philadelphia, and the District of Columbia, resulting in dramatically improved student performance. Partnership and collaborations with the Discovery Channel enable Voyager to provide timely and powerful curricula for the American classroom. Voyager Expanded Learning, Inc. is a business unit of ProQuest Company based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. For more information, please visit www.voyagerlearning.com or call 1-888-399-1995.
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