Study Will Examine Online Academic Reading

from the Education Northwest eNewsletter, November 1, 2012:

In November, Education Northwest will launch a 5-year study with the Center for Advanced Technology in Education (CATE) to test professional development materials used by teachers in their literacy work with students with learning disabilities. The federal Office of Special Education Programs is funding the $2.5 million Stepping Up to SOAR: Strategies for Online Academic Reading project.
During the project, staff will work with at least 20 middle schools to develop, test, evaluate, refine, and disseminate professional development models and teacher materials designed to support the adoption and implementation of the SOAR Toolkit. According to CATE Director Mark Horney, “The SOAR Toolkit is designed to teach middle school students with learning disabilities to efficiently and effectively search for, find, evaluate, read, and utilize appropriate and relevant information when reading and studying online.”
The publicly available toolkit encompasses nine evidence-based, student-centered strategies that Horney says “integrate explicitly with appropriate Common Core State Standards and are designed to promote student competency for acquiring and synthesizing useful web-based information.”

Links: Education Northwest