One95 Literacy Ecosystem From 95 Percent Group Honored With 2023 Excellence in Equity Award

Lincolnshire, IL– January 17, 2024 – One95™ Literacy Ecosystem™ from 95 Percent Group LLC, the trusted source for proven literacy solutions, was honored with an Excellence in Equity Award from the American Consortium for Equity in Education. Honored as the Best Literacy Solution, the One95 Literacy Ecosystem is a comprehensive literacy toolkit that is based on the science of reading and proven to advance reading skills in students from diverse backgrounds, grades, and abilities.

Honoring the industry contributors — companies, products, leaders, nonprofits and more — whose work supports success and equitable achievement for educators and students, the Excellence in Equity Awards were created to acknowledge, spotlight, and celebrate high-impact work across K-12 education, as well as expand and enhance the discussion around educational equity.

The One95 Literacy Ecosystem integrates evidence-based products and professional learning resources into one cohesive system of print materials and digital tools that empower educators with easy-to-use assessments and instructional methods and provide students with consistent learning routines. It features solutions for tiers of instruction in grades K-5 and beyond, all aligned with MTSS/RTI frameworks.

“Ensuring equity in literacy instruction is at the core of 95 Percent Group’s mission. We provide teachers with the knowledge, tools, and support to empower all students to learn to read,” said Brad Lindaas, CEO, 95 Percent Group. “Receiving this award recognizing that our products are helping educators ensure that literacy education is equitable is a wonderful way to start the new year.”

Among the school districts across the country that have used the One95 Literacy Ecosystem to level the playing field for building student literacy skills is Fulton County Schools, located just outside Atlanta. A diverse school district with 80 percent minority enrollment, the majority of Fulton County’s student population was struggling to read.

The district turned away from the hodgepodge of balanced literacy programs it had been using and embraced the evidence-based literacy instruction the One95 Literacy Ecosystem provides across all tiers of instruction. Using resources from the Literacy Ecosystem, such as 95 Phonics Core Program® and 95 Vocabulary Surge–Unleashing the Power of Word Parts™, students in grades K-5 have received explicit, systematic, and cumulative instruction that has supported accelerated improvement.

In five short months, students who could barely read made significant progress, reached grade level, and acquired an insatiable appetite for reading. Classes that were scoring at 63 percent proficient are now scoring at or above 92 percent; teachers are seeing 30-point gains in the phonics domain, with noticeable results across writing, spelling, and reading comprehension.

Fifth grade teacher Nicola Johnson praised the rigor of the One95 Literacy Ecosystem, believing it has been a game changer. “I come into the classroom and make sure that my scholars can exceed their own expectations—every single day,” she said. “Especially as brown and black boys and girls, their expectation is that ‘we’re not learning, we’re not going anywhere.’ And if there is a teacher that has explicit modeling and an explicit curriculum that allows for that learning and expectation to be exceeded…they can do anything.”

About the Excellence in Equity Awards

The Excellence in Equity Awards program recognizes the companies, nonprofits, leaders, and educators whose work contributes to the critical goal of ensuring access and equity for every learner. Learn more at www.ace-ed.org/awards.

About 95 Percent Group

95 Percent Group is an education company whose mission is to build on science to empower teachers—supplying the knowledge, resources and support they need—to develop strong readers. Using an approach that is based in structured literacy, the company’s One95™ Literacy Ecosystem™ integrates professional learning and evidence-based literacy products into one cohesive system that supports consistent instructional routines across tiers and is proven and trusted to help students close skill gaps and read fluently. 95 Percent Group is also committed to advancing research, best practices, and thought leadership on the science of reading more broadly.

For additional information on 95 Percent Group, visit: https://www.95percentgroup.com.

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