AWARD is a comprehensive program for teaching and assessing literacy with a 21st-century perspective.

Technology—AWARD integrates technology into shared learning experiences and small group and independent literacy learning tasks each day to

motivate and engage 21st-century children as they learn to read, write, and think their way through print.

Texts—There are hundreds of engaging and thought-provoking print and electronic texts in a variety of genre. These texts connect to the world and experiences of young children and to the content of the curriculum. They are animated and brought to life on CD-ROM and read on audio CD. They gently guide children along a leveled continuum of reading success and ensure that they develop the necessary grade-level fluency, comprehension, and technology skills, from Kindergarten through Grade 3.

Skills—There is comprehensive skills development, practice, and application every day in each teaching plan. Children develop reading skills in the five key areas recognized for success in learning to read: phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. With AWARD, children also develop skills in complementary skill areas: writing, research and inquiry, technology, oral language, and visual literacy. The AWARD phonics texts, including Alphabet books (one for each letter at Kindergarten) and Letter Combination and Word Family books (at Grade 1) provide children with lots of practice applying the phonemic awareness and phonics skills essential for learning to read while they are reading real books.

Assessment materials—These are provided to teachers in CD-ROM and print formats and are designed to be a positive force in the teaching and learning process. AWARD provides embedded, ongoing assessment that teachers use to design and implement successful reading programs for all their children. The assessment tasks are practical for teachers and schools that are performance-driven.

AWARD harnesses technology to provide a personalized profile of each child’s knowledge as they are learning to read. The assessment is accountable to teachers, families, and administrators: the results and analyses on the assessment database can be printed so that progress is seen. The assessment is non-threatening to young children: there is no “test” feel about the assessment tasks. Rather, the tasks are like a learning game, in which children receive helpful feedback about their responses.