The Wyoming Department of Education has landed a nearly $10 million federal grant to expand a reading intervention program developed by a Coralville-based education technology company to rural students across multiple states.
Foundations in Learning, maker of the WordFlight reading intervention platform, was named a partner in a five-year, $9.99 million Education Innovation and Research grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Education to the Wyoming Department of Education. The Iowa Reading Research Center at the University of Iowa is also a partner in the project.
The grant will fund “Project Skyword Literacy: Lifting Decoding and Fluency through Data-Guided Practice,” which is designed to expand access to reading support for students in grades 3-5 in rural school districts. The University of Iowa’s Center for Evaluation and Assessment will conduct the project evaluation, while the Iowa Reading Research Center will handle on-site assessment and data collection.
WordFlight is described by the company as a literacy assessment and intervention tool that targets the gap between phonics and fluency. The program moves 85% of struggling students to proficiency in foundational reading skills within one school year, according to Foundations in Learning.
“This grant allows us to provide WordFlight to students who need personalized intervention to support their foundations for reading fluency, while testing and expanding models for educators on the ground to sustainably support high-impact interventions,” said Allison Zimmermann, CEO of Foundations in Learning.
Seth King, an associate professor of special education at the University of Iowa and an IRRC Research Fellow, said the project will examine evidence-based practices across schools in Iowa, Wyoming and other states.
“The findings will provide useful guidance for supporting students who struggle with foundational reading skills,” he said.
The U.S. Department of Education said the EIR awards are intended to support evidence-based literacy instruction and help grant recipients build sustainable literacy support systems for students.
