McGraw-Hill Launches SRA FLEX Literacy™ to Help Struggling Students Meet the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts

NEW YORK, Feb. 7, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- McGraw-Hill, in collaboration with MetaMetrics®, the developer of the industry leading Lexile® Framework for Reading, today announced the launch of SRA FLEX Literacy, a comprehensive reading and language arts intervention system for students in Grades 3–12. SRA FLEX was built from the ground up to specifically help at-risk students learn the critical reading and writing skills required to meet Common Core State Standards.  The program provides teachers with unparalleled insight into students' progress through the use of the Lexile measurement system, the most widely adopted measure of reader ability and text difficulty in K-12 education.

The Common Core State Standards, which align K-12 instruction across states behind a defined set of learning expectations with the goal of preparing all high school students for success in college and their future careers, have presented a unique challenge for educators by raising the bar for student performance. This challenge is felt even more acutely among teachers of students who struggled to read and write at grade level prior to the implementation of the new, more rigorous standards.

"The 21st century classroom contains students with incredibly varied skill levels and learning styles, and those considered to be at-risk or of lower proficiency will face even greater challenges as schools implement curricula designed to meet the Common Core State Standards," says Dan Caton, president of McGraw-Hill School Education. "With SRA FLEX, we've combined teacher-led instruction and the latest adaptive and analytic technology with collaborative learning methods to create a highly personalized learning experience with the goal of providing struggling readers and writers with the skills they need to succeed."

Comprised of three unique and flexible learning experiences – the Digital Experience, the Print Experience and the Project Experience – SRA FLEX engages students through high-interest, collaborative and interactive tools, and rich text selections.

• The Digital Experience, the backbone of the program, offers self-paced, individualized and scaffolded online lessons with activities for instruction, practice, assessment, remediation and review. The Lexile Framework guides the entire process, allowing SRA FLEX to pair each student with reading materials that match his or her reading ability perfectly, and to ensure that students are challenged in the most constructive way. In addition, the system's adaptive features enable SRA FLEX to slow down when students are struggling and accelerate when they have demonstrated mastery.
• The Print Experience offers teacher-led, small-group lessons focused on explicit reading instruction that engages students to develop comprehension, allowing at-risk students the opportunity to rise up to and interact with on-grade level texts, rather than drop down to lower level texts.
• The Project Experience uses whole-group instruction, small-group collaboration and independent writing projects to encourage students to make cross-curricular connections and ultimately support critical thinking, one of the most important pillars of the Common Core. Collectively, the program's three experiences are designed to continually motivate students with flexibility and a highly engaging user-friendly design.

"As we transition to the more rigorous demands of the Common Core, we are excited to team up with McGraw-Hill to bring their dynamic reading intervention program to the market," says Trilby Berger, senior vice president of strategic partnerships of MetaMetrics. "The remarkable results of the SRA FLEX pilot demonstrate that teachers and administrators value the unparalleled ease with which the program allows for collection and reporting of data for student grades and progress. We are proud of the results to date and look forward to working with McGraw-Hill as they make this program available to school districts across the country."

Following the recent completion of the program's successful pilot in six school districts, SRA FLEX is now nationally available for purchase as a comprehensive reading and language arts program or as a supplemental reading intervention solution.