The Department of Education uses a two-phase system to select recipients for Early Reading First that includes a pre-application and a full application. All applicants must submit a pre-application that briefly addresses certain key concepts. Applicants invited to submit full applications will be expected to respond to more specific selection criteria. In accordance with the Early Reading First statute, peer review panels will be convened under section 1222(c) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) (the Early Reading First statute) and section 1203(c)(2)(A) of the ESEA (the Reading First statute), and will include three experts in early reading development and early childhood development as required by the statute.

FY 2009 EARLY READING FIRST DISCRETIONARY GRANT COMPETITION

ATTENTION FY 2009 EARLY READING FIRST APPLICANTS

The notice inviting applicants to submit a pre-application for the Early Reading First FY 2009 competition was released, March 3, 2009, for all eligible applicants.

• Deadline for Transmittal of Pre-Applications: The deadline for applicants to submit pre-applications is April 2, 2009 (by 4:30:00 p.m., Washington, DC time). Please visit grants.gov to apply.

Pre-applications for the grants under this competition must be submitted electronically using Grants.gov. For information about how to submit full applications electronically, or by mail or hand delivery if you qualify for an exception to the electronic submission requirement, please refer to the application notice published in the Federal Register on March 3, 2009.

If an applicant wishes to exercise the Exception to Electronic Submission Requirement, applicants must submit no later than two weeks before the pre-application deadline (March 19, 2009) a statement to the Department requesting an exception to these requirements and explaining the grounds that prevent the applicant from using the Internet to submit your full application. If an applicant decides to mail the request for the Exception to Electronic Submission Requirement to the Department, it must be postmarked no later than two weeks before the full application deadline date (June 2, 2009). Complete details on Exceptions to Electronic Submission Requirements are available in the ERF Federal Register notice inviting applicants for FY 2009.

The pre-applications will be reviewed by experienced peer reviewers using the selection criteria published in the FY 2009 Early Reading First application. Notification to pre-applicants invited to submit a full application will be forwarded on April 30, 2009. Following notification to the pre-applicants invited to submit full applications, unsuccessful pre-applicants will be sent a letter addressed to the certifying representative and the project director thanking them for participating in the review process. All original unfunded applications and related documents and related documents will be retained for 90 days. Unfunded applications and related documents will then be forwarded to the Federal Records Center for an additional three-year retention period.

CLOSING DATE FOR FULL APPLICATION

• Deadline for Transmittal of Full Applications under the Early Reading First competition: June 16, 2009 (by 4:30:00 p.m., Washington, DC time).

• Deadline for Transmittal of Pre-Applications: April 2, 2009 (by 4:30 p.m., Washington DC, time)
• Deadline to submit a waiver request for Electronic Submission Requirement (Pre-Application): March 19, 2009 (by 4:30 p.m., Washington DC, time)
• Deadline for Transmittal of Full Applications: June 16, 2009. (by 4:30 p.m., Washington DC, time)
• Deadline to submit a waiver request for Electronic Submission Requirement (Full Application): June 2, 2009

If an applicant wishes to exercise the Exception to Electronic Submission Requirement, applicants must submit no later than two weeks before the pre- application deadline a statement to the Department requesting an exception to these requirements and explaining the grounds that prevent the applicant from using the Internet to submit your pre-application. If an applicant decides to mail the request for the Exception to Electronic Submission Requirement to the Department, it must be postmarked no later than two weeks before the pre-application deadline date.

Applicants for this program competition must use the government-wide website, grants.gov, to apply. This will replace the previous requirement that applicants use the U.S. Department of Education's e-Grants system. Please note that the Grants.gov site works differently than the U.S. Department of Education's e-Application System. We strongly encourage you to familiarize yourself with Grants.gov and strongly recommend that you register early and submit early.

Register Early: Grants.gov registration may take five or more days to complete. You must be fully registered to submit an application. Please follow the detailed Step-by-Step instructions on the Grants.gov Get Started page (http://www.grants.gov/applicants/get_registered.jsp) or in the Grants.gov Registration brochure to:

Register Your Organization

• Obtain your organization's Data Universal Number System (DUNS) number
• Register your organization with Central Contractor Registry (CCR)
• Identify your organization's E-Business POC (Point of Contact)
• Confirm your organization's CCR "Marketing Partner ID Number (M-PIN)" password

• Register Yourself as an Authorized Organization Representative (AOR)
• • Obtain your username and password
  • Register your username and password with Grants.gov

• Get Yourself Authorized as an AOR
• • Contact your E-Business POC to ensure your AOR status
  • Log in to Grants.gov to check your AOR status

You are encouraged to register before the competition is announced in the Federal Register.

Submit Early: Do not wait until the last day to submit your application! To submit successfully, you must enter the DUNS number in the application that your organization used when it registered with the CCR.

For more information to help you with Grants.gov, please visit the Outreach Material's page for Grants.gov

You will want to ensure your application is submitted (i.e. has a date/time stamp from Grants.gov before 4:30 pm on the deadline date) AND that the application is processed and validated successfully. Grants.gov processing times may vary, so you need to allow at least 3 days for any unanticipated problems with your submission. If Grants.gov rejects your application, you will need to resubmit before the deadline date and time.

Grants.gov Support: For help with Grants.gov, please call 1-800-518-4726 or use the customer support available on the website.

The Department of Education, working with Grants.gov, is currently moving from using PureEdge software to using Adobe Reader software exclusively and applications submitted to Grants.gov for the Department of Education will be posted using Adobe forms. Applicants will no longer need to use the PureEdge software to create or submit an application.

Please note: The compatible version of Adobe Reader is required for viewing, editing and submitting a complete grant application package for the Department of Education through Grants.gov. Applicants should confirm the compatibility of their Adobe Reader version before downloading the application. To ensure applicants have a version of Adobe Reader on their computer that is compatible with Grants.gov, applicants are encouraged to use the test package provided by Grants.gov that can be accessed at http://www.grants.gov/applicants/AdobeVersioningTestOnly.jsp.

Important issues to consider:

1. If the applicant opened or edited the application package with any software other than the compatible version of Adobe Reader, the application package may contain errors that will be transferred to the new package even if you later download the compatible Adobe Reader version.
2. Applicants cannot copy and paste data from a package initially opened or edited with an incompatible version of Adobe Reader and will need to download an entirely new package using the compatible version of Adobe Reader
3. Some applicants using an incompatible version of Adobe Reader may have trouble opening and viewing the application package while others may find they can open, view and complete the application package but may not be able to submit the application package through Grants.gov.
4. Grants.gov does not guarantee to support versions of Adobe Reader that are not compatible with Grants.gov.
5. Any and all edits made to the Adobe Reader application package must be made with the compatible version of Adobe Reader.

For your convenience, the latest version of Adobe Reader is available for free download at http://grantsgov.tmp.com/static2007
/help/download_software.jsp#adobe811.

We strongly recommend that you review the information on computer and operating system compatibility with Adobe available at http://www.grants.gov/applicants/applicant_faqs.jsp#software before downloading, completing or submitting your application.

Applicants are reminded that they should submit their application a day or two in advance of the closing date as detailed in the Federal Register Notice. If you have any questions regarding this matter please email the Grants.gov Contact Center at support@grants.gov or call 1-800-518-4726.

• Federal Register Notice Inviting Applications for FY 2009 (March 3, 2009)

The FY 2009 Early Reading First Instruction Package (CFDA No. 84.359A - Full application) is available to download.

• Application
  MS WORD (1M) | PDF (800K)

• Eligibility Form A
  MS WORD (42K)

For printed applications contact:
ED Pubs
P.O. Box 1398
Jessup, MD 20794-1398
Telephone: (877) 433-7827
(TDD) (877) 576-7734
ED Pubs Web site
E-mail: edpubs@inet.ed.gov

The Department has established the following Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA) performance measures for the Early Reading First program:

1. The cost per preschool-aged child participating in Early Reading First programs who achieves a significant gain in oral language skills after each year of implementation
2. The percentage of preschool-aged children participating in Early Reading First programs who demonstrate age-appropriate oral language skills after each year of implementation
3. The average number of letters Early Reading First preschool-aged children are able to identify after each year of implementation; and
4. The percentage of preschool-aged children participating in Early Reading First programs who achieve significant gains in oral language skills after each year of implementation.

For FY 2009, applicants may select their own assessment instruments for GPRA reporting. Please see the attached document designed to assist applicants in selecting quality assessments.

• Assessment Instruments
  PDF (25K)

• For automatic e-mail notification when events, publications, or resources relating to ERF become available, we invite you to join the ERF Infoline Listserv!

• ED-Pubs information (application package)