NYIT, NY State Teacher Centers & Associated BOCES Partner with myON to Support College and Career-rea

ISLIP, N.Y. - May 15, 2014 - PRLog -- Teachers at 25 schools throughout the state of New York are participating in an 18-month literacy pilot designed to improve college and career-readiness for all students.

myON^TM (http://www.myon.com/), the award-winning web-based literacy environment for PreK-Grade 12 — which is built upon the Lexile® Framework for Reading and includes metrics that track and predict student reading growth — is at the core of a new professional development model for New York educators that will be built by the myON team, in partnership with the New York Institute of Technology (http://www.nyit.edu/) (NYIT), the NY State Teacher Centers (http://www.nysteachercenters.org/), and their associated BOCES (http://www.boces.org/wps/portal/BOCESofNYS).

Participating districts include Chateaugay Central School District, Elba Central School District, Geneseo Central School District, Gowanda Central School District, Islip Union Free School District, Lake Placid Central School District, Lynbrook Public Schools, Wheatland-Chili Central School District, Wyandanch Union Free School District, York Central School District, and Yonkers Public Schools, along with the Diocese of Buffalo Education Office.  More than 400 teachers and over 5,000 students will participate in the pilot.

"At the core of preparing New York students to be college and career ready is ensuring that students are able to handle text materials found in those environments," explained Stan Silverman, director of NYIT's Technology Based Learning Systems Department and co-chair of the New York State Teacher Centers Technology Committee. "This private-public project will bring together the expertise in the classroom with the experts from the private sector to help create a set of learning and teaching strategies that will support the acquisition of these skills for all students.  NYIT, the New York State Teachers Centers and their associated BOCES are pleased to be part of this critical activity."

Educators at pilot sites are beginning to implement the myON (http://www.myon.com/) personalized literacy environment within their classrooms, and students are being encouraged to read in and out of school, over the weekends and during school breaks. As new content-rich curriculum and instructional practices are developed during the pilot period, they will be incorporated into these existing implementations, enabling educators to provide input and feedback.

“The myON team is eager to work with our partners in New York on this pilot project,” said Todd Brekhus, president of myON.  “We developed myON as a break-through literacy environment that challenges conventional thinking about student access and engagement with text. This state pilot project is the next logical step: providing New York’s teachers with just-right tools and support while using myON to achieve their instructional goals and help them to meet the challenges of their state standards.”

Key components of the pilot include:

·       Development of relevant wrap-around resources for the myON personalized literacy environment, with a focus on text complexity, close reading of texts, and data driven instructional practices, that are targeted to address all learners within any classroom setting.

·       Creation of capacity-building professional development that provides concrete and ongoing support for teachers, leverages the existing PD infrastructure in NY, and promotes family and community engagement.

·       A comprehensive deployment strategy that will ensure statewide availability and access to the new resources and professional development strategies, scheduled to launch in time for the 2015-16 school year.

For more information about the New York Institute of Technology, please visit http://nyit.edu/

For more information about the New York State Teacher Centers, please visit http://www.nysteachercenters.org

For more information about myON, a business unit of Capstone, leading publisher of classroom and library books, please visit www.myON.com