PCI Education Reading Program Level Two Receives AEP Award
Date: Friday, June 19, 2009
PCI Education Receives 2009 Distinguished Achievement Award
from The Association of Educational Publishers
PCI Reading Program Honored in Special Education Category for Grades K-5
SAN ANTONIO (June 18, 2009) – The Association of Educational Publishers (AEP) has honored PCI Education with a 2009 Distinguished Achievement Award for the PCI Reading Program Level Two, in the special education category for grades K-5. The two-level reading program, published by PCI Education, is designed to help nonreaders become readers through a developmentally appropriate sight-words based system.
The PCI Reading Program is a scientifically research-based curriculum designed for students with developmental disabilities, autism or significant learning difficulties. An alternative for those who have not learned to read through traditional phonics-based approaches, the reading program uses visual discrimination, the ability to quickly distinguish one letter from another, to increase a student’s sight-word vocabulary. Research shows that students whose teachers used the PCI Reading Program achieved higher sight-word assessment scores in reading than students of teachers not using the program.
According to Charlene Gaynor, CEO of AEP, the 2009 winners exemplify what it means to think of the 21st century classroom. “Despite our economic climate, I was struck by the limitless innovative ideas seen throughout this year’s entries,“ said Gaynor. “Many products challenged educational norms and explored new ways to make the essentials fun. Stellar math and reading materials proudly earned honors along with less traditional, yet relevant, real-world subjects like finance, relationships and nutrition.”
The PCI Reading Program contains real-world, age-appropriate illustrations and contemporary characters to engage students. The instructional materials use repetition and review in combination with frequent praise to help increase students’ self-confidence. Nonreaders begin with PCI Reading Program Level One, which teaches automatic recognition of 140 sight-words, and common nouns and verbs. In Level Two, students learn 140 additional words and how to apply commonly used inflectional endings.
“The PCI Reading Program is wonderful,” said Denise DeBose, Teacher of Primary Autistic Students at New Orleans Public Schools. “The illustrations and picture cards are great and help capture a student's attention and keep them focused on the lesson. Thanks to the PCI Reading Program, all of my students are now able to read sentences, and one student is attempting to make his own sentences. My students thoroughly enjoy participating in the program daily, and I truly enjoy teaching reading with the program.”
For more than four decades, the AEP Awards have honored outstanding resources for teaching and learning. One of the largest and longest-running awards programs for educational products, the AEP Awards aim to give credit and recognition to the organizations that are leading the way in the field of educational products, and to set benchmarks to which the rest of the industry can aspire. Founded in 1895, AEP is a nonprofit organization that serves and advances the industry of educational publishing.
The 2009 Distinguished Achievement Awards winner were announced at the annual AEP Awards Banquet & Gala on June 12, 2009, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. To view a complete list of AEP Award winners, visit www.aepweb.org/awards/winners.htm.
For more information on the PCI Reading Program, visit www.pcieducation.com/reading.