Over the years, Marietta City Schools, one of Georgia’s first Charter Systems and an International Baccalaureate World School District, has seen the Emergent Bilingual population grow to more than 1,600 students.
District leaders had been offering sheltered content-area classes with specialized instruction for Emergent Bilingual students. Still, while students were experiencing growth in their language skills, they were lagging behind on state tests for literacy achievement.
After considering programs to help this population, district leaders chose to incorporate Lexia® Core5® Reading (for grades pre-K–5) and Lexia® PowerUp Literacy® (for grades 6–12) into their English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) programs. During the 2018–2019 school year, 1,000 Emergent Bilingual students in the district used Core5, and 88 students in grades 6–12 used PowerUp.
Both of these programs are based on the science of reading and use an Adaptive Blended Learning model to support educators in differentiating learning for students of all abilities. Both Core5 and PowerUp prescribe individualized online usage targets for each student. Since the programs are flexible, teachers can choose how they fit online usage into students’ schedules.
To help educators implement both programs, leaders at Marietta City Schools expanded their Lexia® partnership to include a Lexia Implementation Support Package. This package allowed teachers to hit the ground running with adequate training, data coaching, and ongoing consultation from a dedicated team.
The programs’ on-demand data confirmed to leaders Core5 was the right choice for their district. Only 11% of the district’s K–5 Emergent Bilingual students began the year at grade level in Core5. By the end of the school year:
- 90% of these students advanced at least one grade level in the program.
- 67% of students using the program with fidelity were working at or even above grade level.
Older students experienced similar success with PowerUp.
In PowerUp, students are auto-placed into their appropriate skill levels within three areas: Word Study, Grammar, and Comprehension.
- In Word Study, 88% of students using PowerUp began in the lowest (Foundational) zone. But by the end of the year, that number reduced to just 28%.
- In Grammar, the 78% of students working in the Foundational zone dropped to 34% and in Comprehension, that number dropped from 58% to 19%.
To learn more about the literacy gains Marietta City Schools' Emergent Bilingual students made with Core5 and PowerUp, read the case study.
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