The federal early-literacy program gets a big boost from tools used for professional development and personalized student instruction. But that potential is too often going unrecognized. Brewster Elementary, a rural K-6 school of almost 500 students, just north of Yakima, WA, could reasonably be considered a school at risk: Fully 92 percent of its students qualify for Title I funding; 83 percent use English as a second language. For eight years running, Brewster has been using the HOSTS Learning system, with funding help from the federal Reading First program.

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