Dallas, TX, April 17, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Dallas-based education technology leader Istation has been approved as both an initial assessment and extensive assessment vendor for the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) for the 2019-2020 academic year.
Initial assessments are tools used early in the school year and regularly throughout it to identify students’ potential issues or challenges in grade-level literacy skills and pinpoint those who may be at risk of falling behind. Extensive assessments are delivered only to students who display a deficiency on the initial assessment or through formative and classroom assessments.
Michigan school districts will use Istation’s Indicators of Progress (ISIP™) Early Reading assessment, which addresses state standards in Reading Foundations, Reading Comprehension, Language and Listening, to ensure all students are reading at grade level by the end of the third grade, as required under the state’s Read by Grade Three Law.
According to the MDE Literacy Team, assessments will help districts with benchmarking, comprehensive screening and building a diagnostic understanding of student performance in reading, which is an essential component of a complete program for early literacy.
“We are proud to be named as a vendor to provide computerized reading assessments for elementary school students in the state of Michigan,” said Istation Chairman and CEO Richard H. Collins. “Istation’s individualized assessments provide important feedback that is essential to Michigan’s complete program for early literacy in support of raising literacy throughout the state.”
The ISIP assessment measures student growth with engaging, computer-adaptive diagnostic and screening programs, providing data so that teachers and students both know which specific skills a student needs to improve, and giving them a map of how to improve reading comprehension. Because the program is computer-adaptive, it can measure skills across grade levels.
With ISIP, an entire class can be assessed in 30 to 40 minutes. Following the assessment, the program immediately generates reports that educators can use to guide instruction and intervention. A pair of recent studies has shown that Istation’s reading assessments accurately predict how students will perform on end-of-instruction tests.
For more information, including the list of initial and extensive assessments, resources for designing a comprehensive assessment system, and information on how to strengthen formative assessment practices, visit http://www.michigan.gov/mde/0,4615,7-140-28753_74161-410821--,00.html.
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About Istation
Founded in 1998 and based in Dallas, Texas, Istation (Imagination Station) has become one of the nation’s leading providers of richly animated, game-like educational technology. Istation was named one of 2019’s “EdTech 1000: Companies Transforming Education” by EdTech Digest and has received numerous national educational technology awards. The Istation program puts more instructional time in the classroom through small-group and collaborative instruction. Istation’s innovative reading, math and Spanish programs immerse students in an engaging and interactive environment and inspire them to learn. Additionally, administrators and educators can use Istation to easily track the progress of their students, schools and classrooms. Istation now serves more than 4 million students throughout the United States and in several other countries. The company celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2018.