WriteToLearn 5.0 Debuts With Even More Powerful Capabilities for Helping Students Build Writing and Reading Comprehension Skills

BOULDER, Colo., March 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Pearson today launched an update of its award-winning Web-based learning tool for developing writing and reading comprehension skills. WriteToLearn(TM) 5.0 debuted with new capabilities that make it an even more powerful tool for helping students build literacy skills.

With WriteToLearn, students practice essay writing and summarization skills, and their efforts are measured by Pearson's state-of-the-art Knowledge Analysis Technologies(TM) (KAT) engine. The KAT engine is a unique automated assessment technology that evaluates the meaning of text by examining whole passages, not just grammatical correctness or spelling.

With the new text-to-speech capabilities in WriteToLearn 5.0, students can have the hundreds of reading passages in WriteToLearn read aloud to them, a particularly useful feature for struggling readers or English language learners. Using the added dictionary and spot word translation ability in WriteToLearn 5.0, students can also instantly retrieve the dictionary definition or Spanish translation of any word in a reading passage.

The new teacher comment feature in WriteToLearn 5.0 takes the assessment tool to the next level, providing students with direct feedback from their teacher. Teachers can easily add a comment on an essay or summary, and students can view them when they review the essay or summary scoreboard. In addition to the teacher comments, the essay and summary scoreboards give students scores for copying, spelling, redundancy, irrelevancy and grammar. The essay scoreboard also includes scores for each of six traits of writing -- ideas, organization, conventions, sentence fluency, word choice and voice.

Earlier this school year, language arts teacher Michael Jenkins started using WriteToLearn with his students at Estancia Middle School in New Mexico and is already seeing changes.

"Lights are going on, and they're excited about learning," he said. "When I say it's time to go to the computer lab, they jump up and go, and I have no problem keeping them on task." He added that during a recent visit, Estancia's superintendent was surprised to see that the students were so immersed in WriteToLearn that they didn't even notice when the dismissal bell was about to ring.

For those students who lack skills to write well with pencil and paper, WriteToLearn is leveling the playing field, Jenkins said. "One young man had struggled to get his ideas on paper, but when I put him on WriteToLearn, he became a different person."

All schools and districts with current WriteToLearn accounts will receive the updates free of charge during March and April. More information about WriteToLearn is available at http://www.WriteToLearn.net.

About Pearson

Pearson is the global leader in educational publishing, assessment, information and services, helping people of all ages to learn at their own pace, in their own way. For students preK-12, Pearson provides effective and innovative curriculum products in all available media, educational assessment and measurement for students and teachers, student information systems, and teacher professional development and certification programs. The company's respected brands include Summary Street(R), WriteToLearn, Scott Foresman, Prentice Hall, AGS, PowerSchool, SuccessMaker, TeacherVision and many others. Pearson's comprehensive offerings help inform targeted instruction and intervention so that success is within reach of every student. Pearson's other primary businesses include the Financial Times Group and the Penguin Group.