Scottsdale, AZ -- Nov. 18, 2005 -- Pearson Digital Learning, the leader in proven, comprehensive technologies for preK-12 education, today announced the selection of three National Best Practice Sites for the Waterford Early Reading Program^TM, adaptive computer-based instruction developed by the nonprofit Waterford Institute.

Selected from the more than 13,000 Waterford installations around the country, the 2005 National Best Practice Site winners are: Dunbar Elementary in St. Louis, Mo., Westfield Elementary in Pilot Mountain, N.C., and La Primaria Elementary in El Monte, Calif.

The honor is awarded annually to schools that effectively integrate the award-winning Waterford courseware, teacher guides, student books, and take-home materials with their curriculum; demonstrate strong long-term parental involvement; implement a clear evaluation plan; show measurable results; and present an innovative and replicable implementation.

"Our reading scores on the California Standards Test have risen by over 30 percent, due primarily to our teachers' comprehensive understanding of early literacy development, effective research-based pedagogy, and the Waterford Early Reading Program," said Jefferey Lagozzino, principal at La Primaria Elementary. "Waterford completely compliments our mission here to make students confident, successful learners. Teachers report that it both sets the stage for new lessons, and helps reinforce lessons previously taught. We're way ahead on achieving our NCLB objectives, with scores more than double of where we are minimally expected to be according to our state's accountability timeline. After having it for three years, we can't imagine not having Waterford as part of our daily instruction. It is an integral component of our core literacy program."

As a 2005 Waterford National Best Practice Site winner, each school will receive a plaque and a trip to the Waterford Best Practices Conference this winter. At the conference the winners will be featured presenters, sharing their success stories in a one-hour session at the conference. The Waterford Best Practices Conference will be held Feb. 22-25, 2006 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Dunbar Elementary

Located less than five miles from downtown St. Louis, Dunbar Elementary has a 30 percent mobility rate, and 100 percent of students qualify for the free or reduced meal program. After years of languishing student achievement, Dunbar began a major transformation in 2003. It implemented the Waterford Early Reading Program as the cornerstone of its redesigned primary grades literacy program helping to change the way that students are taught and learn. The Waterford program is used by all students in kindergarten and first grade, and by at-risk second, third, and fourth graders.

With the support of Waterford, Dunbar’s kindergarten and first grade students have gained 1.5 grade levels per school year as measured by the Gates-McGinitie and Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS^TM) reading assessments. As a result, children who entered kindergarten half a grade level behind, leave first grade half a grade level ahead of their district peers. Comparative TerraNova scores also show that second grade students who received Waterford instruction in prior years scored significantly higher than a matched set of second grade students in city elementary schools without Waterford.

Westfield Elementary

Since 2002, Westfield Elementary has implemented the Waterford Early Reading Program daily for all kindergarten students to help create an engaging, positive and productive learning environment. Westfield continually reevaluates its Waterford implementation to align it with the Scott Foresman basal reading program, its K-2 English language arts assessment, and the North Carolina Standard Course of Study.

Westfield compared Waterford kindergartners with a historical control group of kindergartners using a variety of assessments that included concepts of print, phonemic awareness, letter knowledge, high frequency word recognition, and reading level from miscue. Across all five assessments, Waterford students outperformed the control group. Of the five assessments, the reading level from miscue is ranked the most important to the school, measuring mastery of reading from a leveled passage. Waterford students showed the strongest gains compared to the control group on this test, with 39 percent more students above grade level for reading, 19 percent more students on grade level, and a positive shift of 33 percent less students categorized as below grade level.

La Primaria Elementary

La Primaria Elementary implemented the Waterford Early Reading Program in 2002 as an integral part of its comprehensive language arts curriculum for all students in kindergarten through second grade. The Waterford take-home materials play a key role in the school-to-home connection to learning. Given to parents as part of the school’s Student Success Team (SST) process, the materials have been effective way to involve parents in the education process, especially when assigned as an intervention through the SST.

La Primaria tracked English Language Learner (ELL) gains with the use of Waterford. The school’s kindergarten and first grade ELL students achieved significantly higher test scores, compared to ELL students across the district, in all the district reading benchmark exams. For kindergarten ELL Waterford students, 87.3 percent averaged at or above benchmark in reading, compared to 63.9 percent district-wide. For first grade ELL students, 69 percent averaged at or above benchmark in reading, compared to 52.5 percent district-wide. In addition, La Primaria’s second graders scored a 55 percent overall proficiency rate on the California Standards Test in Language Arts. This far exceeded the government target of 24 percent set by No Child Left Behind for the 2004-05 school year, and the district average of 25 percent.

About the Waterford Early Reading Program

Developed by Pearson Digital Learning’s distinguished partner, the nonprofit Waterford Institute, the Waterford Early Reading Program is a comprehensive early reading curriculum designed to help children learn to read through the use of state-of-the-art technology. Based on 10 years of research, the program contains three levels for emergent, beginning, and fluent readers, combining to provide 225 hours of individualized reading instruction. The Waterford Early Reading Program is used in more than 13,000 sites serving 350,000 students.

About Pearson Digital Learning
At Pearson Digital Learning our mission is to provide innovative, research-based digital learning solutions that elevate the art and science of teaching, and inspire children to reach their greatest potential. Reaching more than 20 million students annually, our products include: the SuccessMaker® Enterprise and NovaNET® educational courseware; and the KnowledgeBox® digital learning system. Pearson Digital Learning is also the exclusive distributor for the Waterford Early Reading Program™ and Waterford Early Math & Science™, adaptive computer-based instruction developed by the Waterford Institute.

Pearson Digital Learning is part of Pearson Education the world's leading integrated education company, which in turn is part of Pearson (NYSE: PSO) the international media company. More information can be found at: www.PearsonDigital.com.