BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Louisiana education officials say 67 school systems will share in more than $10 million worth of grants aimed at improving struggling students' reading and writing skills.

  

In a news release, the state education department ways the money comes from a $55.5 million "Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy" grant Louisiana received from the federal government last year.

  

Those grants are meant to advance reading and writing skills of disadvantaged children. The department says the Louisiana grants will fund four programs aimed at evaluating and bolstering student skills in kindergarten and the early grades, along with measures to evaluate teacher-student interactions and teachers' use of classroom materials.

  

The grants were awarded Wednesday by a vote of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.