Seward Incorporated

Seward Incorporated has been awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract to develop and test a supplementary instruction reading program for fourth- and fifth-grade students. The FastTrack contract, valued at $850,000, is through the U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Technology administers the SBIR Program to ensure that the nation's small, high-tech, innovative businesses are a significant part of the federal government's research and development efforts.

 

Seward will use the funding to develop and test the Word-Learning Strategies project – a comprehensive program to train teachers to effectively teach students a set of practical, research-based, and theoretically sound strategies for inferring the meanings of unknown words they encounter while reading. The strategies to be taught include using context, word parts (compound words, inflectional suffixes, prefixes, derivational suffixes, and roots), and glossaries and dictionaries. Additionally, Spanish-speaking English language learners (ELLs) will receive instruction in using cognates, and all ELLs will receive instruction in recognizing idioms.

 

The final product will be a comprehensive supplementary program to teach word-learning strategies. The basic model for instruction will be teacher-led direct explanation modified to include constructivist elements. Student material will include student activity books, pretests, and posttests. Teacher material will include online tutorials, including videos modeling best teaching practices, to prepare teachers to use the materials; a detailed teacher manual; and presentation materials (e.g., overheads/slides, posters). To provide extra assistance for students, the final product will also include supplementary web-based instruction on each of the strategies, web-based instruction on using cognates for Spanish-speaking ELLs, and web-based instruction on recognizing idioms for all ELLs.

 

Seward has also recently developed three other projects funded by SBIR contracts: The First 4,000 Words, Individualized Language Development, and Model Eliciting Activities in Middle Grades. The First 4,000 Words Project is a web-based multimedia system for teaching the meanings and pronunciations of the 4,000 most frequently used English words. This program is aimed at students in grades 1-4, with emphasis on English Language Learners, struggling readers, and children of poverty who have small vocabularies relative to their peers. The Individualized Language Development project produced media-rich, individualized, age-appropriate, language instruction software for elementary students. The Model Eliciting Activities project involved the development and field testing of a 3-D virtual learning environment in which teams of students interact, gather data, and engage in problem solving activities together.

 
Contact Information: Vicky Frank (spokesperson) 612-721-4444 x13; This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it