Our foundation's mission includes training teachers and improving instructional materials and assessments for students. In our home state of North Carolina, hundreds of elementary schools have been informed that they fell short of the new federal standards requiring them to raise the end of grade test scores of their weakest students. The law requires that school enrollments be divided into a variety of categories by race, income, and educational disadvantages. For a school to get a passing grade, every subgroup must show improved results. A state analysis indicated that only a third of North Carolina schools met this goal. To help alleviate this problem, North Carolina has received a $20.7 million federal grant aimed at improving reading instruction in 100 North Carolina elementary schools. The reading initiative must follow specific reading programs that have proved to be effective and must focus on five key areas: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. The ELFoundation/EILL Center curriculum includes and supports all five areas.