-Dave Nagel, T.H.E Journal

California’s Hacienda La Puente Unified School District is expanding its implementation of the MY Access! language arts program from Vantage Learning. This district is now making the online writing tool available to more than 13,000 high school, middle school, and fifth-grade students through an expanded, $486,000 license, Vantage reported.

“Our high school teachers were first to measure the difference MY Access! makes in students’ writing performance and attitude,” said Judy Carlton, director of instructional support teams/programs at the district, in a prepared statement. “Their success led our middle school instructors to embrace the program. Now it’s only natural we extend MY Access! to our fifth-grade classes, to engage and develop their writing skills at this crucial educational stage.”

MY Access! uses Web-based forms that allow students to input assignments. It then checks those assignments against various writing characteristics and scores students on their writing proficiency, style, mechanics, and other factors. It also supports multilingual students and ELL students, which make up about 40 percent of Hacienda La Puente’s student body, and is able to deliver feedback and tutoring in multiple languages.

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