Lexia English Puts Literacy Within Reach for Refugee Students

The majority of Georgia’s refugee agencies are located in DeKalb County. That means the area’s large school district supports students who need to start their literacy journey by first learning English. 

Yvette Drew, ESOL coordinator for DeKalb County Schools, said the district has 20,000 English learners. Hundreds are considered “intensive” because they have never been to school, she said. 

These students use Lexia English Language Development™ to start listening to and then speaking English. “When you are a newcomer with no background in the language, we want you to start with that,” Drew said. 

One of the most popular features of Lexia English is the use of accents. “The avatar they are learning from is accented, so they kind of look and sound like the students,” Drew said. “This makes it easy for them to negotiate the program.” 

As an ESOL coordinator for 64 schools, Drew said Lexia’s hands-on support makes it possible to manage thousands of students while keeping tabs on how her new readers are doing. In fact, with many students successfully advancing through Lexia English, they then transition to Lexia® Core5® Reading, an Adaptive Blended Learning program that accelerates the development of literacy skills for elementary students of all ages. 

This short video illustrates DeKalb County educators’ challenges and successes with Lexia®.