LEA
Jefferson CountyProject
Name: Reading, ‘Riting & RAM
Project
ContactDate
of Report:January 10, 2000
1.Using
specifics, compare your timeline and benchmarks in the grant to what is
actually occurring in your project.
The
3R’s project timetable for the second quarter was follows (this timetable
takes into consideration the late start of the school year):
October
1999 Participants
will be introduced to MS Word 97, which will be used for journaling and
newsletters.The Institute for Academic
Excellence will conduct an onsite Reading Renaissance in-service for the
staff at Piedmont Elementary and the technology facilitator.
November
1999 Students
will create weekly classroom newspapers using Publisher 98 and the digital
camera.Newspaper topics will be
related to classroom activities and current events located on the Internet.
December
1999
Participants will use Internet bookmarks of web sites that will be useful
in the mastery of objectives.
What
is occurring: A
new server was ordered that would adequately hold the Star and Accelerated
Reader upgrade, and it is being put into place this week.Star
was back-ordered and was obtained by the lab right before Christmas break.Pre-testing
on Star should begin this week or the first of next week.So
far, 3-5 students have been working in word processing programs, primarily
MS Word, creating documents similar to those kept in a journal.These
assignments are ongoing and should conclude in the next couple of weeks.Samples
can be seen on the 3R page (http://207.125.93.3/3R/). Those
students will then begin creating newsletters using Publisher 98 and the
digital camera.Samples of these
newsletters should be posted on the 3R page by the end of January.Students
in grades 1-2 have been working in reading programs like Reader Rabbit
and Kid Phonics and will continue to do so through the end of January.They
have also worked in a word processing program and had their documents printed
out.The higher-achieving students
in this group will begin working individually in word processing programs
in February.
2.What
progress have you made toward reaching the objectives and goals that you
set
in
your proposal?
The
Tennessee Master Plan Goals addressed in this project are:
State
of the art technology will be used to improve curriculum.
Tennessee
Report Card Performance Indicators
Competency (Reading
and Writing)
Through
the use of reading-based computer software (Reader Rabbit series, Kid Phonics),
students in grades 1-2 have effectively supplemented their traditional
textbook-based reading curriculum.The
vast majority of students have performed well in these programs, and many
of the lower-achieving students have performed better than they have been
in the classroom.Students in grades
3-5 have been using the Internet to research writing topics and Microsoft
Word to create various journal entry documents.The
higher-achieving students, being allowed to advance at their own pace,
have been very creative and eager to learn the new technology.Almost
all of the students have been very enthusiastic about using the computer
lab to complete these writing assignments.
3.What
progress have you made toward the National Goal or Goals as you presented
in
your
proposal?
The
National Goals this project addresses are:
Improved student achievement through the use of technology as a tool to enhance the reading curriculum.
As stated earlier, reading programs in grades 1-2 have been very successful, especially among the lower-achieving students.Higher-achieving students have performed well, as was expected.They have been challenged by being allowed to move on to more difficult programs as they complete each program.Students in grades 3-5 will be introduced to reading programs later in the third quarter.
4.At
this point, how is the Goals 2000 funding positively affecting the education
of the
children
in your county?
Teachers
and students have learned about technologies they were either unfamiliar
with or had limited knowledge of.Parents
have been completing and returning a monthly reading checklist, which monitors
a child’s reading habits.This
is the third month of receiving these forms, so it is premature to establish
trends from these forms.The next
quarterly report should include trends based on the findings from these
forms.Star reports will also provide
evidence of students’ reading progress during the third quarter.
5.Describe
some great happenings concerning your project.Please
send any articles
for
documentation to us for our files.
Using
the $2, 500 dollars supplied by the grant for books, as well as $3,000
provided for books by the county for the project, the librarian was able
to improve the library’s collection substantially by adding over 300 new
books with accompanying Accelerated Reader quizzes.Also,
students have been able to view their or their classmates’ writing samples
on the Internet at the Jefferson County 3R page
(http://207.125.93.3/3R/),
giving them positive feedback as well as incentive to do their best work.