Karen Feller, Chief Academic Officer for Reading Plus®, today congratulated Miami-Dade Public Schools fourth- and eighth-grade students on their exceptional reading results on the 2009 National Assessment for Education Progress (NAEP), the report card of American students’ performance in a variety of academic subject areas.

“We commend Miami-Dade students and administrators on their fantastic accomplishment,” Ms. Feller said. “Miami-Dade and Reading Plus® have been education partners for five years, working together to improve silent reading fluency of the district’s diverse urban student population. We are proud to be a component of the district’s long-standing reading enhancement initiative.”

In a statement to the Miami Herald, Milagros Fornell, the district’s Associate Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction, attributed the high scores to a five-year-old program that stresses the importance of reading in all academic disciplines.

The 2009 NAEP reading results, released earlier this month, indicate that Miami-Dade, the nation’s fourth-largest school district, outperformed 18 other urban districts from around the country in numerous categories. Among the highlights of the NAEP’s findings: the district’s Hispanic population performed better than peers in any other large urban district and scored well above the national average for Hispanic students; and Miami-Dade African American eighth graders scored higher than average among peers from other large cities. More than 4,200 Miami-Dade students from the fourth and eighth grades participated in the 2009 NAEP.

Miami-Dade middle school principal Dawn Baglos commented, “After implementing a school-wide Reading Plus® program, we received positive feedback from our students. Our students enjoyed reading more and read more independently because of their new level of confidence. They felt more successful with new reading material in all areas of the curriculum.”

Reading Plus® is a web-based reading intervention system that uses innovative technology to provide individualized scaffolded silent reading practice for students in primary and secondary schools as well as at the post-secondary level. The Reading Plus® system, designed in alignment with current reading research, develops and improves reading proficiency by providing extensive engagement in high-success, differentiated reading activities.

To learn more about Reading Plus®, visit www.readingplus.com.
To view the 2009 NAEP results, visit http://nationsreportcard.gov/reading_2009/.