| Abstract: | Good verbal skills are crucial for success in school and in many career fields. Project LIVE was a program of enrichment and acceleration focused on the development of verbal talent. It was implemented for 3 years with a group of middle-school students who indicated an above-grade-level reading proficiency and came from families having low-to-moderate income levels. Forty-five students participated in the program and received numerous educational services to improve their reading and writing skills. The students showed significant progress on English and/or reading subtests of the EXPLORE, the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT), and the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) tests. Higher parental expectations for children's academic achievement were another positive outcome of the program. More than two thirds of the students were placed in Honors English in their freshman year in high school, which was considerably higher than the percentage (47%) of high-school freshmen in Honors English in the school district where the majority of the students were from moderate- to high-income families. |
