Title I Summer Program – On the Road Again!

Summer was just around the corner and the students in Wake County Public Schools, North Carolina were getting ready for a road trip.

The theme for the Title I Elementary summer program was “On the Road Again” and activities were centered on the idea of taking a trip. For instance, math projects would involve finding the distance between two cities, and reading assignments will highlight stories about different parts of the world.

This four-week summer school provided academic support for students who demonstrated below proficiency standards from the previous school year. It served rising identified students in rising grades 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 and rising K (Early Start) and provided them with both literacy and math instruction. Approximately 1700 students from 29 schools across 11 physical locations participated in the summer program.

Students used Smart Tutor’s prescriptive instruction twice a day in 30-minute blocks – once for Reading and once for Math. Parent involvement was key and teachers provided them with a cumulative performance report at the end of each week. They also were given access to a special parent portal that allowed them to log in and monitor their children’s progress whenever they liked. This is the third year in a row that students in the Title I Elementary summer program used Smart Tutor.

Read more about their “Remediation Success Story using Web-based Differentiated Instruction” – presented at the North Carolina Technology In Education Society Conference.

What one teacher said after last year’s summer school program:

“I think that the program was amazing for the children to utilize. I believe that it has helped these children to grow in both their reading and math skills, and I would love to see it more widely used throughout the schools. I also feel like this program was great for the kids who need help retaining information. Hopefully this program refreshed their brain with the information that they learned this past year and they will be more likely to remember it for the upcoming school year.”

More…

• Listen to Becky McGee of Title I talk about Elementary Summer School (2008) – 6 minute mp3 file from Wake County Public Schools