July 12, 2005 –  Baltimore based Brookes Publishing is pleased to announce that both Phonemic Awareness in Young Children and Road to the Code, have been approved by the state of Maryland for the Maryland Reading First Program! These books meet the guidelines stipulated by Reading First and have qualified as supplemental and intervention programs and materials. For the next three years all participating Reading First schools across the state of Maryland will be able to use their Reading First funding to purchase these two products for use in the classroom. Reading First is designed to serve nine local Maryland school systems to ensure that all children are reading at grade level by the end of third grade (to view the list of Maryland schools go to: http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/MSDE/programs/reading_first/school_list.htm).

A list of the approved materials will be distributed to all School systems in Maryland currently participating in the Reading First program.

Reading First focuses on effective instructional practices with a basis in scientifically-based reading research (SBRR). Scientifically based reading research has identified five essential components of effective reading instruction. To ensure that children learn to read well, explicit and systematic instruction must be provided in the following five areas: Phonemic awareness — the ability to hear, identify, and play with individual sounds — or phonemes — in spoken words; Phonics — the relationship between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language; Fluency — the capacity to read text accurately and quickly, including oral reading skills; Vocabulary — the words students must know to communicate effectively; and Comprehension — the ability to understand and gain meaning from what has been read.[1]

Tracy Gray, Education Sales Manager
Brookes Publishing, www.brookespublishing.com
Phone: 410-337-9580
tgray@brookespublishing.com