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ETS and Great Source Team Up to Help Students Improve Their Writing Skills

Posted on: Tuesday, 30 May 2006, 12:00 CDT

ETS and Great Source Education Group today announced a collaboration to help students improve their writing skills. Great Source, a division of Houghton Mifflin Company, will market and distribute subscriptions to a co-branded version of ETS's Criterion(SM) Online Writing Evaluation.

The Criterion service, part of ETS's System 5(TM) suite of K-12 products and services, is an online learning tool that uses automated scoring technologies to evaluate student essays online. The Criterion service helps instructors more quickly evaluate student writing skills by scoring essays that students submit and providing annotated diagnostic feedback in real time about the use of grammar, usage, mechanics, style, and organization and development. Teachers set the parameters for each assignment and can provide feedback on student essays in the form of pop-up notes or comments posted on a private message board.

"ETS and Great Source Education Group share a commitment to help students become better writers and more confident communicators," said John Oswald, ETS's senior vice president for Elementary and Secondary Education. "By working together, we can reach more schools with stronger resources that give students the practice they need to become clear, fluent, and effective writers."

The co-branded version of the Criterion service will complement Great Source's popular Write Source program, and include custom prompts, level specific handbooks, traits support, and graphics directly aligned with Write Source textbooks. Starting this August, schools and districts that purchase subscriptions through Great Source will get Write Source's new support coupled with the Criterion service's existing features to advance writing progress.

"The Write Source program is an effective resource to help students become better writers, thinkers and learners," said Steve Zukowski, president of Great Source Education Group. "Coupling our proven instruction and learning strategies with ETS's research and technological capabilities will produce a product that will help educators make a difference in classrooms every day."

More than a half million elementary, middle and high school students have used the Criterion service across the United States.

"Students become proficient writers through constant practice, but teachers have less time than ever to grade writing assignments," Oswald said. "The Criterion service gives students the opportunity to work independently in a computer lab or at home to improve their writing. It also reduces the amount of time that a teacher needs to spend reviewing each essay and gives them the information they need to make informed instructional changes."

For more information about the Criterion service, visit www.ets.org/criterion. An online tour is available at www.ets.org/criteriontour.html. For more information about ETS's System 5(TM) suite of K-12 products and services, visit www.ets.org/system5.

About Great Source Education Group

Great Source Education Group, a division of Houghton Mifflin, publishes curriculum-based supplemental resources for students and teachers in grades pre-K through 12, as well as for parents and home schoolers. With offerings in the core curriculum areas of reading, language arts, math and science, Great Source also publishes programs designed to meet specific initiatives such as summer school, afterschool, intervention, test prep and ESL. The company's Web site can be found at www.greatsource.com.

About Houghton Mifflin

Boston-based Houghton Mifflin Company is one of the leading educational publishers in the United States, with more than $1 billion in sales. Houghton Mifflin publishes textbooks, instructional technology, assessments and other educational materials for elementary and secondary schools and colleges. The Company also publishes an extensive line of reference works and award-winning fiction and nonfiction for adults and young readers. With its origins dating back to 1832, Houghton Mifflin combines its tradition of excellence with a commitment to innovation. The Company's Web site can be found at www.hmco.com.

About ETS

ETS is a nonprofit institution with the mission to advance quality and equity in education by providing fair and valid assessments, research and related services for all people worldwide. In serving individuals, educational institutions and government agencies around the world, ETS customizes solutions to meet the need for teacher professional development products and services, classroom and end-of-course assessments, and research-based teaching and learning tools. Founded in 1947, ETS today develops, administers and scores more than 24 million tests annually, in more than 180 countries, at over 9,000 locations worldwide. Additional information is available at www.ets.org.

 Contact: Bryan Pope Account Executive Connors Communications (ETS) 212-798-1403 Contact via http://www.marketwire.com/mw/emailprcntct?id=D8BCE433675BF5C7  Jodi Goldman Manager, Public Relations Houghton Mifflin Company 617-351-3817 Contact via http://www.marketwire.com/mw/emailprcntct?id=45A4A0E72EF68637  

SOURCE: Educational Testing Service

Source: MARKET WIRE

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