Voyager Sopris Learning announced today it has released REWARDS Plus: Social Studies (3^rd Edition), a powerful, specialized reading program for struggling readers in middle and high school. With activities to help students learn to read with proficiency and confidence, the new edition places a significantly increased focus on vocabulary, comprehension and critical thinking skills.

“This is a powerful and immediate intervention program that provides long-term results,” said Jeffrey A. Elliott, President, Voyager Sopris Learning. “Teachers love the fast-paced, engaging, direct instruction, while students are rewarded by building literacy skills in their social studies courses.”

With a focus on close reading of content area informational text, critical thinking, extended response items, and academic vocabulary in the content areas, REWARDS Plus: Social Studies offers an impactful and affordable solution that supports any core curriculum.

The program, Elliott said, is designed to be administered as a full-semester, 15-week course with 50- to 60-minute lessons delivered daily. Lessons build upon each other and assessment is interwoven to ensure mastery. Moreover, he said, the programs are easy for teachers to deliver, and offer districts and schools with flexible implementation options.

“We once believed struggling readers could not improve their literacy skills after fifth grade. Of course, this is not true,” said literacy expert Dr. Anita L. Archer, co-author of REWARDS Plus. “Growth in reading and writing can go forward in middle school and high school if the intervention is intense and focuses on the big secondary six: decoding, fluency, vocabulary, background knowledge, comprehension, and writing. This is exactly the purpose of REWARDS Plus: Social Studies.”

The program also:

• features a research-based and research-validated approach to deepen comprehension of content-area texts;
• builds on students’ progressive mastery of word-attack strategies (from earlier versions of REWARDS) and engages them in applying the strategies to authentic content-area texts; and
• helps students successfully transfer skills in fluency, comprehension, and critical thinking from ELA settings to content-area settings.

In addition to Dr. Archer, program authors are Dr. Mary Gleason and Dr. Vicky Vachon. The new edition provides a new video mini-course to guide instruction by Dr. Archer.

For more information on Voyager Sopris Learning, visit www.voyagersopris.com. For more information on REWARDS Plus: Social Studies, visit www.voyagersopris.com/info/rewards-plus/.