Science Research Associates (SRA), founded by Lyle Spencer in 1938, was a

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

-based publisher of educational materials and schoolroom reading comprehension products.SRA history
/ref> The company was acquired by

McGraw-Hill Education McGraw Hill is an American education science company that provides educational content, software, and services for students and educators across various levels—from K-12 to higher education and professional settings. They produce textbooks, ...

in the early 2000s.

History

The company was founded in 1938. In 1950, Donald Henry Parker developed his multilevel reading product. In 1955, Parker proposed the product to Science Research Associates. In 1957, the SRA Reading Laboratory Kit was first published, for individualized classroom instruction, that they translated to mathematics, science, and social studies commonly called SRA cards. The labs were large boxes filled with color-coded cardboard sheets, and each sheet included a reading exercise for students.

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

purchased SRA in 1964. By this time, the company's line of primary- and secondary-school products had increased. Among the new products was the National Educational Development Tests, a series of

standardized test A standardized test is a Test (assessment), test that is administered and scored in a consistent or standard manner. Standardized tests are designed in such a way that the questions and interpretations are consistent and are administered and scored ...

s sold to schools as a method of testing students' likelihood of qualifying for college. SRA produced both

IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the List of IBM Personal Computer models, IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible ''de facto'' standard. Released on ...

and

Apple II Apple II ("apple Roman numerals, two", stylized as Apple ][) is a series of microcomputers manufactured by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1977 to 1993. The Apple II (original), original Apple II model, which gave the series its name, was designed ...

software in the 1980s. Maxwell Communication Corporation bought SRA in 1988, and it became part of Macmillan/McGraw-Hill in 1989. Maxwell Communications collapsed, and McGraw-Hill acquired full ownership of Macmillan/McGraw-Hill and SRA.

Educational programs

Since the 1960s, SRA has published

Direct Instruction Direct instruction (DI) is the explicit teaching of a skill set using lectures or demonstrations of the material to students. A particular subset, denoted by capitalization as Direct Instruction, refers to the approach developed by Siegfried E ...

programs, also known as DISTAR (Direct Instruction System for Teaching Arithmetic and Reading). These include ''Language for Learning, Reading Mastery, Reasoning and Writing, Connecting Math Concepts,'' and ''Corrective Reading''. SRA acquired ''

Everyday Mathematics ''Everyday Mathematics'' is a pre-K and elementary school mathematics curriculum, developed by the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project (not to be confused with the University of Chicago School of Mathematics). The program, now p ...

'' and purchased

Open Court Reading The Open Court Reading Program is a core Language arts/English series used in a large number of elementary schools classrooms. It was one of two reading programs adopted for use in California schools when textbooks were last chosen in 2002. ...

in the 1990s. In the early 2000s, the company was purchased by

. The brand name and products were made part of the PreK-12 business of the company. The ''Imagine It!'' reading program was launched in 2007. McGraw-Hill Education also competes as a publisher of mathematics and science materials with programs such as ''Real Math, Number Worlds'' and ''Snapshots Video Science''.

References

External links

1964
IBM Timeline (archived) {{Authority control Educational publishing companies Former IBM subsidiaries

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Publishing companies established in 1938 Reading (process) Textbook publishing companies 1938 establishments in Illinois

History

Educational programs

Further reading

References

External links