• What’s New – NAEP Emphasizes Skills Taught by Merit Software
• Customer Feedback – Accu-Reading
• Recommended Resource – OneLook Dictionaries
• Grants for U.S. Educators
  

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), known as "the Nation's Report Card,” provides the only nationally representative assessment of U.S. students’ reading progress. Recently released NAEP statistics indicate an unfortunate trend. While reading scores for 9-year-olds have improved, scores for 13-year-olds remained static. Scores for 17-year-olds actually declined.

Three Merit Software programs can help schools reverse this trend. Developing Critical Skills for Effective Reading, Vocabulary Fitness, and Accu-Reading have all been proven, through published research, to boost standardized test scores.

To see a summary of the Merit software study, visit: http://www.meritsoftware.com/merit_calhoun_summary.pdf

To learn more about the NAEP report, click here: http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/ltt/what_measure_reading.asp

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“The software works well. Our students like it, and really like the instant results it gives. Plus, it motivates them. We’ve seen real improvement on their test scores,” says an educator at Westminster West Middle School in Westminster, MD, about Merit Software’s Accu-Reading.

Accu-Reading covers key reading skills, including inference and drawing conclusions based on texts. Students work with social studies and science reading passages. They gain strategies for analyzing vocabulary and developing effective word choice skills.

For a complete software description or to try the downloadable evaluation version, go to: http://www.meritsoftware.com/software/accu_reading

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OneLook Dictionary Search is a power-search engine for both words and phrases. Over 5 million words in more than 900 online dictionaries are indexed. Tools for translation and a reverse dictionary are also provided.

Find it, at: http://www.onelook.com

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The Tiger Woods Foundation awards grants to school programs and projects that enhance children’s learning experiences, as well as to transitional school programs that help students become productive adults. Project proposals are considered on a quarterly basis, and may include the purchase of software.

Go to: http://www.twfound.org/grants

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