Students Build 21st Century Writing and Reading Skills With New Update of Pearson's Award-Winning Online Writing Tool
WriteToLearn 5.3 Features Increased Support for Summary Writing, New Capabilities for Teachers
BOULDER, Colo. - Aug. 26, 2009 - Today's
students text, blog, "tweet," and sometimes they even write
with pencil and paper. To ensure that all students build the literacy
skills required for success in today's information-based world, Pearson,
the education and technology company, today launched the newest version
of its award-winning Web-based writing and reading comprehension tool,
WriteToLearn™.
With WriteToLearn, students develop essay writing and summarization
skills, and their improvement is measured by Pearson's state-of-the-art
Knowledge Analysis Technologies™ (KAT) engine. The KAT Engine is a
unique automated assessment technology that evaluates the meaning of
text, not just grammatical correctness or spelling.
"In today's world, literacy has become a more critical skill than
ever before, and all students must develop strong writing and reading
comprehension skills to be successful in school, work and the
world," said Lynn Streeter, president of the Knowledge Technologies
group of Pearson. "The new capabilities in WriteToLearn 5.3 offer
learners of all abilities greater support for developing these literacy
skills and give teachers more flexibility in how they use our powerful
online tool to support instruction."
In addition to choosing from more than 100 essay topics that come with
WriteToLearn, teachers can now create their own topics to assign to
their students. And, beyond the broad assortment of essay writing
activities in WriteToLearn, teachers can select from nearly 600 reading
passages across subject areas for summary writing activities.
WriteToLearn 5.3 also provides students with increased support when
writing summaries. Many of the summarization activities now include
"hints" to help students identify the important ideas in a
reading. Hints are text-specific questions that help scaffold student
learning. When a student is struggling with a particular section, a hint
is available to help the student focus on the main idea of that section.
Using this feature over time helps students to think critically about
the main ideas in the texts they read. Teachers can control this
feature, turning it on or off, as they feel appropriate.
At Troutman Middle School, which serves 400 students in North Carolina's
Piedmont region, students of all academic abilities are taking their
writing skills to new heights with the help of WriteToLearn. Debbie
Craven is a special education teacher at the school, and Perry Justice
co-teaches an inclusion class with her. "Some of our students
couldn't focus to put together simple sentences, and writing was very
difficult and frustrating for them," said Craven. "Since we
introduced them to WriteToLearn, we have seen a dramatic change. They
think nothing of sitting down to write for an hour. Kids who used to
struggle with one or two paragraphs are composing entire essays."
In the past, Craven and Justice would introduce an essay topic, spend
time explaining and encouraging their students and allow for two weeks
of writing with paper and pencil. This year, they took their students
to the computer lab once a week to use WriteToLearn, and they were off
and running at log-in. "The papers they wrote were just
fabulous - it blew my mind," said Justice. "They finished them
in a day and a half instead of two weeks, and they were working on them
at home, too."
Craven pilot-tested WriteToLearn's new teacher-created essay topics
capability with her students. "To prepare my students for writing
persuasive essays on the state assessment, I entered a teacher-authored
topic. It was extremely easy, took just five minutes to learn, and
WriteToLearn led me through the process," she said. "It was
great to have the option of creating unique writing assignments."
All schools and districts with current WriteToLearn accounts will
receive the updates free of charge. More information about WriteToLearn
is available at www.WriteToLearn.net.
About Pearson
Pearson (NYSE: PSO), the global leader in education and education
technology, reaches and engages today's digital natives with effective
and personalized learning, as well as dedicated professional development
for their teachers. This commitment is demonstrated in the company's
investment in innovative print and digital education materials for preK
through professional learning, student information systems and learning
management systems, teacher development, career certification programs
and testing and assessment products that set the standard for the
industry. The company's respected brands include Scott Foresman,
Prentice Hall, Addison Wesley, Benjamin Cummings, the Stanford
Achievement Test series, the Wechsler family of assessments, SuccessNet,
MyLabs, PowerSchool, SuccessMaker and many others. Pearson's
comprehensive offerings help inform targeted instruction and
intervention so that success is within reach of every student at every
level of education. Pearson's commitment to education for all is
supported by the global charitable giving initiatives of the Pearson
Foundation. Pearson's other primary businesses include the Financial
Times Group and the Penguin Group. For more information, go to
www.pearson.com.
For more information, press only:
Adam Gaber, Pearson, 800-745-8489, adam.gaber@pearson.com
Lisa Wolfe, L. Wolfe Communications, 773-227-1049, lwolfe@lwolfe.com
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