BOSTON – Global learning company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) today introduced Escalate English © 2017, an intensive English language development (ELD) program. Specifically designed to support intermediate-grade English learners, this new program is being launched to meet increasing demand in K-12 education for intensive, comprehensive content that supports students who are at risk of falling behind due to language barriers.
Escalate English features both digital and print components aligned with HMH’s award-winning language arts curricula, Journeys and Collections, and increases proficiency in oral and written English language skills by offering additional daily instruction. Materials are easily scaffolded to engage students at multiple levels of language proficiency, ensuring they receive the proper support needed to obtain grade-level language mastery, meet rigorous standards and demonstrate assessment growth.
“English learners currently comprise 19% of students enrolled in the K-12 school population, and we expect to see this number grow to 30% by 2023. Long-term English learners, who have spent a number of years in U.S. schools but continue to struggle with proficiency, possess a unique set of challenges. They face a greater risk of dropping out, especially if they are unable to achieve the fluency levels required to become confident students, and often go without the proper instructional support needed to boost academic language skills,” said Dr. Elena Izquierdo, principal investigator for Project LEAD (Leadership in English Acquisition and Academic Development, a National Professional Development grant from the U.S. Department of Education) and program consultant for Escalate English. “With this program, HMH is expanding the reach of its quality content and solutions and helping school districts across the country close the achievement gaps faced by long-term English learners.”
Escalate English promotes active language use via listening, speaking, reading and writing exercises and activities. Students experience a supportive and engaging instructional environment that is marked by learning and applying language in a variety of contexts, including structured academic conversations. Lesson content features relevant and age-appropriate texts and media. Flexible, comprehensive teacher resources provide a complete instructional plan for meeting ELA and ELD standards.
Educator and student resources incorporate the best of HMH’s digital tools and online content, including:
- A dedicated Teacher Dashboard that provides a central location for educator resources, including a teacher planning tool (mySmartPlanner), student assessment reports and a professional learning site featuring articles, tools and videos from ELA and ELD experts;
- A parallel Student Dashboard, which provides a central student resource location, including myWriteSmart, a collaborative digital workspace, and a note taking tool (myNotebook), to support active engagement with the eBook version of the Student Edition;
- Current, engaging young adult fiction and informational texts and media, including online access to graphic novels, blogs, NPR podcasts and video;
- Language Cam videos that model academic language usage in real-world scenarios;
- Interactive text complexity rubrics to inform instructor lesson planning, scaffolding tools and ongoing performance tasks.
Escalate English will be available for purchase and implementation in 2016.
To learn more, please visit www.hmhco.com/escalate-english.
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About Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (NASDAQ:HMHC) is a global learning company dedicated to changing people’s lives by fostering passionate, curious learners. As a leading provider of pre-K–12 education content, services, and cutting-edge technology solutions across a variety of media, HMH enables learning in a changing landscape. HMH is uniquely positioned to create engaging and effective educational content and experiences from early childhood to beyond the classroom. HMH serves more than 50 million students in over 150 countries worldwide, while its award-winning children's books, novels, non-fiction, and reference titles are enjoyed by readers throughout the world. For more information, visit www.hmhco.com.
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Media Contact
Leah Riviere
Communications Manager
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
617-351-5020