According to Carolyn Reicher, Adult Literacy and Learning Advocate for the Calgary Public Library, approximately 40 percent of adults in the province of Alberta do not have the literacy skills they need to reach their full employment potential in a knowledge-based economy.

“It’s not that these individuals can’t read at all, but they may not be able to read well enough to follow instructions in an e-mail from their boss, navigate the Internet well enough to search for jobs, read a map, or understand a company’s safety manual,” she explained.

Not everyone is convinced employers should be asked to take on the role of offering literacy programs.

“Taxpayers spend billions of dollars each year on the kindergarten to Grade 12 education system and if students are coming out and they can’t read and write then that’s probably where more attention needs to be placed,” said Colin Craig, Canadian Taxpayers Federation prairie director. “School boards should explain why that’s happening.”

Merit Software programs have a strong track record of helping schools and tutors improve literacy skills of students. However, these programs have an equally long history of helping adults in workplace settings improve their literacy skills.

Merit is effective for adults because the programs tutor them while they work. Built-in feedback and automatic scoring help learners’ review and relearn concepts they may have once been taught, but have now forgotten.

In addition, the content of Merit programs is not juvenile in any way. The structure of the programs is designed so students can learn at their own pace and advance when they demonstrate readiness.

Read the complete Calgary Herald article here.

Are Common Core standards an effective tool to reform U.S. public schools?

The new standards have a strong possibility to help improve overall student performance. The standards shift the focus from learning grade-by-grade rules and the practice of “teaching to the test” to standards that are aligned with college and workplace expectations.

The most apparent shifts in the new standards come in English language arts. There is more emphasis on analyzing and writing throughout the curriculum. The standards call for students to read texts of increasing difficulty and to learn to clearly synthesize information from them and to communicate their ideas and understanding.

Research conducted on students using Merit Software in schools demonstrates the importance of incorporating writing into the curriculum. Most notably the evidence showed that improving reading, grammar and writing skills of secondary level students was correlated with gains in social studies and science test scores.

This research supports the conclusions of the writers of the Common Core standards and their emphasis on writing and language arts literacy.

Merit’s newest products are engaging, easy-to-use tools that help teachers implement writing and language arts exercises in online versions. These editions of Grammar Fitness, Paragraph and Essay Punch, as well as the creation of Book Punch, help a wide range of students improve and develop language arts literacy skills.

Instructors will benefit from materials and training to help them provide differentiated, personalized, instruction in the Common Core standards skills and content areas.

While the standards allow room for teachers to reach the goals in the context of their own teaching style, what materials do think would help you with your students?

Merit Software helps savvy students, parents, and tutors prevent summer learning loss. In particular, Merit programs for young teenagers and secondary school students, covering reading comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, writing, and math are popular.

Merit programs provide self-paced, self-advancing learning activities. Assessments place students at a suitable level of challenge. Students enjoy using the software and taking charge of their independent learning.

Built-in tips give students personal feedback while they work. Scores are kept in an easy-to-use management system that allows parents and tutors to monitor progress and time-on-task.

Learn more about how Merit Software can help prevent summer learning loss at www.meritsoftware.com

However, nearly 60% of English-language learners in California’s high schools have failed to become proficient in English despite more than six years of a U.S. education, says the report’s sponsor – Californians Together, a coalition of 22 parent, professional and civil rights organizations.

“The situation is alarming and urgent,” said Laurie Olsen, the study’s author. “These kids are a large part of our future. But if we don’t have programs that powerfully bring them into English, we’re going to end up increasingly with a state of kids who are undereducated.”

The report calls for new data collection systems to monitor long-term English language learners and better teacher training and curriculum.

Here at Merit Software, we design programs to help students’ master core academic skills. Teachers can easily use the new online edition of Grammar Fitness and the online Punch writing programs to help English language learners stay focused and interested in gaining the skills they need for academic success.

Grammar Fitness is known for providing personal help and feedback for English language learners of a broad range of skill abilities. The new web based version measures progress and tracks time-on-task for teachers and students. It also has features to enhance online communication between instructors and students.

The major reason students fail is poor grammar, reports CBC News.

Part of the blame should go to cellphone texting and social networking sites, says Joel Postman, the author of SocialCorp: Social Media Goes Corporate, who has taught Fortune 500 companies how to use social networking.

Bad grammar may be acceptable in an email to friends and family, but it can have a deadly effect on one’s career if used at work.

“It would say to me . . . ‘Well, this person doesn’t think very clearly, and they’re not very good at analyzing complex subjects, and they’re not very good at expressing themselves, or at worse, they can’t spell, they can’t punctuate,’ ” he says.

The good news is that Merit Software has just launched a new, online edition of Grammar Fitness to help students and instructors cope with this problem.

Core academic skills, employability skills, and technical skills are three broad sets of skills students need to be career ready, say the authors of the report.

Students need to be able to apply academics in context, and some academic skills need more attention and development. For example, employers often cite deficiencies in English and written communications, such as memos, letters, and complex technical reports. Too often, these skills are not emphasized in traditional academic classrooms.

Not only are these skills not emphasized, many students have been advanced to higher grades without grasping the fundamentals they need for the workplace.

To keep up with their classmates, lagging students need to build and refresh their skills. These students need a way to build skills that is self-paced, self-advancing, and provides practice, depth, support, and reinforcement.

Many educators have turned to Merit Software to help students learn and practice core academic skills they need for career readiness.

Specifically, programs like Business Letter Punch and Reading Strategies for Career Success provide opportunities to help students learn academics in context.

The authors of the report, Steve Graham and Michael Herbert, present compelling evidence that by including evidence-based writing practices in the classroom, such as teaching students how to write more complex sentences and other writing processes, teachers could do a better job of improving students’ writing and reading skills.

Writing instruction mostly occurs at the elementary level, but only for 20 minutes a day, says the report. In more than half of U.S. high schools, students do not write more than one paragraph a month that involves analysis and interpretation.

Writing instruction is infrequent in science, social studies, and even language arts classes. Many teachers do not feel adequately prepared to teach writing.

Many schools, tutors, parents, and self-motivated students are using Merit writing software to fill this void.

The most popular resources are Essay Punch, Paragraph Punch, and Book Punch.

What do you think? Should more writing lessons be included in the curriculum? Share your thoughts with us.

The i3 grants are open to public schools, nonprofits, and universities. All innovations must have a rigorous research base to be considered for the grant.

We believe there are opportunities for educators to use all Merit Software programs within the i3 guidelines.

The process to apply will happen very quickly. The Department is hosting informational webinars and workshops to guide potential applicants this month.

To discuss ways to work with us and learn how to apply for the i3 grants, using Merit programs, please contact us.

To learn more about the Investing in Innovation (i3) grants, click here

The report, Mind the Other Gap! The Growing Excellence Gap in K-12 Education, concludes that closing the “excellence gap” and making excellence a focus needs to become a national priority.

The goal of guaranteeing that all pupils will have the opportunity to reach their academic potential is called into question, says the report, if educational policies assist only struggling students, while the needs of others, such as high-achieving students, are not addressed.

Appropriate interventions need to be identified and researched for their effectiveness. Finding effective, easy-to-use strategies to differentiate classroom instruction will be part of the solution to this problem.

Merit’s process writing programs have a strong track record of helping students with a wide span of abilities reach their academic potential.

Paragraph Punch and Essay Punch are self-paced, self-advancing writing tutorials. Students receive built-in tips and step-by-step suggestions while they work.

Struggling students benefit greatly from the personalized and intensive support in the Punch writing programs.

Advanced pupils are engaged through suggestions for strengthening communication skills, such as encouraging them to add more ideas on a topic and giving them opportunities to edit, revise, and refine their writing.

When writing with the Punch programs, students of a wide range of abilities are able to experience success.

The complete Mind the Gap report is on the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy web site.

The study, an interim report, from the University of Coventry, was based on a sample of 63 children in England, between the ages of 8 to 12.

“If we are seeing a decline in literacy standards among young children, it is in spite of text messaging not because of it,” researcher Clare Wood. The use of text language “was actually driving the development of phonological awareness and reading skill in children,” she said.

Although this is just an interim report, we find these conclusions somewhat misleading.

Spelling and word recognition are just one aspect of literacy. Practicing language skills is valuable, however most text messages are short comments or responses.

Today’s students, more than ever, need to learn to organize their ideas, make coherent arguments, and present information in ways that are clear and concise.

Students who need help with their literacy skills benefit immeasurably from personalized and intensive support. This is where educational software programs like Paragraph Punch and Essay Punch fit in.

When writing with the Punch programs students are guided step-by-step through the writing process. They receive individualized help and feedback throughout. Students of a wide range of abilities are able to experience success.