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EPS Learning Launches EPS Reading Accelerator — A Literacy Solution for Mitigating the Nation’s Middle School Reading Crisis

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Grounded in the science of reading, this blended learning program accelerates middle school student mastery of foundational reading skills toward grade level proficiency.

BETHESDA, Md., May 29, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — EPS Learning, the leading provider of PreK-12 literacy solutions, continues to extend its solution set with the unveiling of EPS Reading Accelerator. With a focus on improving reading skills for middle school students, Reading Accelerator provides a simple, sustainable, and speedy intervention path for building middle school reading proficiency.

“With the addition of EPS Reading Accelerator to our comprehensive literacy suite, we take one step closer to our goal by applying our deep expertise in reading intervention to the underserved population of striving middle school readers.” Steven Guttentag, CEO of EPS Learning

A Tier 2 reading intervention, EPS Reading Accelerator is geared toward students with gaps in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. The blended learning program includes 5-step, structured literacy lessons that can be used in small groups or with the whole class to close gaps in foundational skills and build toward grade-level proficiency.

“Our mission at EPS Learning is to open a lifetime of literacy and learning for every student,” said Steven Guttentag, CEO of EPS Learning. “With the addition of EPS Reading Accelerator to our comprehensive literacy suite, we take one step closer to that goal by applying our deep expertise in reading intervention to the underserved population of striving middle school readers.”

According to NAEP, the Nation’s Report Card, 69% of students who attended 8th grade in 2022 were not yet proficient in reading. This nationwide literacy crisis at the middle school level has been intensified by the pandemic’s learning interruptions and persists as current solutions on the market are not meeting the needs of students and educators. These solutions often require additional resources and extensive educator training and do not engage students with age-appropriate content. With Reading Accelerator, teachers now have an age-appropriate, engaging and easily implementable solution to get middle school reading levels back on track.

“Educators who’ve implemented Reading Accelerator tell us that it has increased their confidence and skills in teaching foundational literacy. These middle school educators are now being asked to teach skills that normally are the focus of elementary school educators, so building their strengths in this new subject area is critical to student success,” said Janine Walker-Caffrey, Chief Academic Officer of EPS Learning. “With EPS Reading Accelerator, educators will be able to better support their students toward meeting or exceeding reading proficiency levels.”

EPS Reading Accelerator includes EPS Reading Assistant, an AI-driven reading tutor that uses voice-recognition technology to provide students with adaptive reading practice. Reading Assistant accelerates student progress toward reading proficiency while providing teachers with dashboards to gauge student progress. Reading Accelerator combined with Reading Assistant makes it simple for any teacher or paraprofessional to deliver highly effective literacy intervention.

“Not knowing how to read can be a very traumatic experience,” said one teacher from East Orange, New Jersey. “Reading Accelerator increased my confidence because it equipped me on how to teach my students to read in a gentle and most non-threatening way.”

To learn more about the EPS Reading Accelerator, please visit https://www.epslearning.com/products/eps-reading-accelerator.

About EPS Learning
EPS Learning has partnered with educators for more than 70 years to advance literacy as the springboard for lifelong learning and opportunity. The 20+ literacy solutions included in the EPS Literacy Framework are based on the science of reading and support grades PreK through 12, all tiers of instruction, and every pillar of reading. EPS Learning offers evidence-based intervention and customized professional learning to help move students toward growth, mastery, and success. Visit http://www.epslearning.com to learn more.

Media Contact

Janine Walker-Caffrey, EPS Learning, 866-334-8782, janine.walker-caffrey@epslearning.com, https://www.epslearning.com/

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SOURCE EPS Learning

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LeoLabs Teams with SciTec to Support U.S. Space Force Ground-Based Radar Digitization Program

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MENLO PARK, Calif., Sept. 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — LeoLabs, Inc. (LeoLabs), the leading provider of persistent Orbital Intelligence, today announced it is teaming with SciTec, a Firefly Aerospace company, to support its recently awarded $93,704,410 firm-fixed price other transaction agreement for ground-based radar digitization. This contract provides for modernization efforts to create a common architecture and design for the upgrade of ground-based radars. Space Systems Command, Colorado Springs, Colorado, is the contracting activity.

“Today’s threat environment demands more resilient sensing capabilities that can be scaled and fielded at the pace of the mission,” said Tony Frazier, Chief Executive Officer of LeoLabs. “We’re proud to bring our proven radar technology and operational expertise to this modernization initiative, helping deliver the speed, scale, and resilience needed to meet the U.S. Space Force’s evolving mission requirements.”

About LeoLabs

LeoLabs enables military space commands, civil government agencies, and commercial operators to confidently detect, track, characterize, and respond to threats in space. Our proliferated, multi-mission radar network, real-time orbital data catalog, and AI-powered analytics support secure, safe, and dynamic space operations.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/leolabs-teams-with-scitec-to-support-us-space-force-ground-based-radar-digitization-program-302872945.html

SOURCE LeoLabs, Inc.

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ZEEKR Shooting Brake Retains Global Sales Crown: August Deliveries Surpass 10,000 Again, Cumulative Total Exceeds 400,000

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HANGZHOU, China, Sept. 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — ZEEKR’s shooting brake lineup has delivered another standout performance. Global deliveries in August once again surpassed 10,000 units, marking the third consecutive month of five-figure monthly deliveries. To date, cumulative global sales of ZEEKR shooting brakes have exceeded 400,000 units, capturing approximately 70% of the global shooting brake market and firmly securing the brand’s position as the global sales leader in the segment.

According to the data, in the first half of 2026, the ZEEKR 007GT topped the shooting brake sales chart with 26,738 units delivered. Combined sales of ZEEKR’s shooting brake models exceeded 42,000 units — far surpassing the combined total of all other brands in the segment. Meanwhile, ZEEKR shooting brakes have fully entered the European market and are steadily establishing a foothold in multiple international premium EV markets, demonstrating strong global competitiveness.

Amid an automotive market mired in homogenization and intense competition, ZEEKR shooting brakes stand out through original design that builds instant visual recognition, and through full-stack 900V high-voltage architecture and other technologies that create a formidable product moat. With its product philosophy of “shooting brake means all-around capability,” ZEEKR is breaking the homogenization trap in the new energy vehicle market — while setting a new benchmark for success in the global premium EV segment.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/zeekr-shooting-brake-retains-global-sales-crown-august-deliveries-surpass-10-000-again-cumulative-total-exceeds-400-000–302873803.html

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Parlance Brings Verified Push Notification Security to Health System IT Help Desks on ServiceNow Store

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WOBURN, Mass., Sept. 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Parlance, a healthcare voice AI company, today announced the availability of its help desk intelligent virtual assistant (IVA) on the ServiceNow Store, alongside a new capability built specifically for the voice channel: Cisco Duo-verified push notification identity verification for sensitive IT requests.

Password resets drive up to half of IT help desk calls. The Parlance help desk IVA now verifies each caller on the spot — a one-time code read aloud on the call, confirmed in an enterprise-level authenticator app — securing the voice channel’s toughest identity verification requirements.

For health system IT leaders, the problem is not abstract. Password resets are commonly estimated to drive 20–50% of IT help desk call volume, and each ticket carries significant cost. Recent industry analyses put the fully loaded price of a single agent-handled password reset — labor, hold time, lost productivity — anywhere from $25 to $70. At a health system fielding thousands of calls a month, that’s a meaningful line item in the IT budget.

The burden on human IT staff is pervasive across industries, not just healthcare. “The majority of IT call volume is password related,” said Bindu Madhavi, Senior Director of Global ServiceNow DevOps and Contact Center at Securitas Security Services USA, Inc. “Many of my colleagues report the number to be nearly 70%.”

Purpose-built for healthcare IT

Traditional IVR systems weren’t built for the complexity of modern IT workflows, and most AI voice solutions weren’t built with the identity verification infrastructure to handle anything sensitive at the voice channel. Parlance help desk IVA was built to close both gaps at once, combining an agentic, AI-native conversational layer (so the interaction sounds like a natural back-and-forth rather than a scripted menu), with enterprise-grade identity verification that meets the security expectations of a regulated industry.

Verified push notification: the security differentiator

What sets this ServiceNow Store listing apart is not automation on its own. What makes this different is the security capability underneath it — what happens when a caller requests something sensitive. Alongside the ServiceNow Store launch, Parlance announces the availability of push-notification-based identity verification within the help desk IVA, built on a new MSP partnership with Cisco Duo.

Approval requires more than a tap. When a caller requests a password reset, the agentic AI system reads aloud a pin, then sends a verified push notification to the caller’s registered device: the caller confirms the spoken PIN inside the enterprise-level authenticator app on their phone, not a simple tap-to-approve. That distinction in the Parlance help desk IVA — a verified push versus a standard one — is what separates a safely routed call from an exploitable one, and it addresses a security requirement the voice channel has largely lacked. Tying the approval to that specific live call and that specific request is a meaningfully stronger standard than an unverified push notification or an SMS-delivered PIN, neither of which confirms that the person approving is actually the person on the line.

Product capabilities

The Parlance help desk IVA supports a growing library of self-service workflows, including:

Password reset — verified via Duo push notification (or another supported authenticator app), with a secure reset link delivered by SMS

Intelligent routing — callers are routed to the right queue or agent based on intent and proper name recognition, with full call context pre-populated on the agent desktop

Ticket status — callers receive real-time ServiceNow ticket status by voice, without agent involvement

Answers to FAQs (frequently asked questions) — the IVA answers common IT questions directly from the ServiceNow knowledge base

Parlance is already deployed at major health systems, including a $4 billion healthcare organization in the western United States. There, employees resolve password resets and other routine IT requests by voice, without waiting on hold for a live agent, freeing up time for the employee making the request and the IT staff who would otherwise be fielding it. 

“The help desk IVA on the ServiceNow Store represents a new chapter for Parlance. We’ve taken the conversational AI platform we’ve built for the healthcare patient access contact center, one that’s processed millions of calls at major health systems, and applied it to the IT help desk, where the same problems exist: high call volumes, repetitive requests, and frustrated employees waiting on hold. The addition of Cisco Duo-powered push notification verification means we’re not just automating the easy calls, we’re handling the sensitive ones too, with the security and compliance posture that healthcare IT teams require,” said Sanjay Yadav, Head of Engineering at Parlance.

“The ServiceNow Store launch opens a significant new market for Parlance in healthcare IT. IT service management is one of the largest and fastest-growing segments for AI voice automation, and the help desk IVA gives health systems a differentiated, production-ready offering they can deploy with confidence,” said Scott D’Entremont, CEO of Parlance.

For CIOs and CTOs deciding where to modernize next, the voice channel has been the hardest one to secure, and the easiest one to overlook, despite quick ROI. Built on an agentic AI architecture, the Parlance help desk IVA is designed to close that gap.

About Parlance

Parlance is a healthcare voice AI company that intelligently routes hospital and clinic calls, resolves routine requests, and reduces the burden on staff answering phones, without adding headcount. Parlance has production deployments at 400+ major health systems, including HCA Healthcare, Providence Health, UC San Diego Health, Keck Medicine of USC, NYU Langone Health, Banner Health, Baptist Health, and thousands of hospitals and clinics nationwide. Parlance brings AI-native voice intelligence, deep system integrations, and proprietary proper name recognition technology to healthcare IT and patient access. For more than 30 years, health systems, enterprise organizations, and higher education institutions have relied on the Parlance platform. Parlance is headquartered in Woburn, Massachusetts. Learn more at parlancecorp.com.

Media Contact

Alexandra Karasic
Head of Marketing, Parlance
888-700-6263  |   akarasic@parlancecorp.com  |  www.parlancecorp.com

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/parlance-brings-verified-push-notification-security-to-health-system-it-help-desks-on-servicenow-store-302872636.html

SOURCE Parlance

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