TUPELO - A Tupelo company was recently recognized by Learning Magazine for a character education program it offers.

ABC Integrity Time was one of 50 national winners of the 2012 Teachers' Choice Award, which recognizes various supplemental educational products. The magazine gives the product to teachers across the country to field test, and those teachers help choose the winners.

Integrity Time was honored for its ABC Integrity Time: Know It Curriculum Kit, which is designed to teach kindergarten and first-grade students the importance of making the right decisions. The 26 alphabet-themed lessons use songs, games, puppets, stories and take-home worksheets.

"We were thrilled," said Integrity Time founder and CEO Sara Berry of Tupelo. "We were especially thrilled that teachers understood its value and its simplicity and the fact that it is easy to implement and has a powerful punch."

Integrity Time also offers a character education curriculum for second- to fourth-graders and is developing lessons for fifth- and sixth-graders. Berry said she hopes to one day add a program for seventh- to 12th-graders.

The curriculum is used in 10 states and is in several Northeast Mississippi school districts, including Tupelo, Lee County, Nettleton, New Albany, Monroe County, Lafayette County, Oxford and Corinth. Berry said she also has had some discussions about taking the curriculum to China.

"We are humbled and feel so honored and blessed," Berry said of the award. "We are thrilled that other people have caught our vision for what we see clearly. We need to have character education in our schools if change will occur."

Lessons also tie into reading, writing and phonics skills, among other things, Berry said. There are "Dinnertime discussion" components that parents can reinforce at home.

chris.kieffer@journalinc.com