2 more grant summaries

GRANT TITLE ___Comprehension Number Extension ___________


GRADE(S) __Second

1. Project Description: What do you want to do and why have you chosen this project? State clearly and be creative.
Children develop math skills at different rates and in different ways. A common problem is that a child has trouble remembering math problems no matter how many times they review them. It's important to stimulate a child's mind in various ways to reach him as an individual and build a connection between his mind and the material he needs to master in school. With so much emphasis placed on understanding concepts way beyond just being able to do calculations correctly, a greater responsibility ends up landing squarely in the lap of reading comprehension and logical thinking skills. There are numerous ways we can help students achieve better in math. I would like to utilize an interdisciplinary approach providing resources that do not mask the reading comprehension component, but work with it to develop good problem solving skills that can be applied unilaterally to all future education settings. The academic structure used to be focused on learning basic skills all through elementary school and shift toward application and extension in middle school and High school, so the thinking, and analyzing could occur in college. This philosophy has diminished and transformed into a spiraling technique that relies on the understanding of simple concepts being able to be manipulated successfully. The thinking skills are a constant extension of all daily practice, so that with more complicated material to learn to focus can be on the new information, not on how to use it. I have chosen this project to strengthen math skills with successful research-based resources to improve thinking, comprehension, and processing skills. There is no provision in the county curriculum budget for these related skills out of context.

2. Objectives: What are your goals? What type of growth do you expect the participants to demonstrate? The objective should be realistic in terms of methods, staff, space, time, and student involvement.
According to the State Department of Education, “Several years of research has yielded much information about how children learn to read. This research tells us that to become more skilled and confident readers over time, students need multiple opportunities to build essential skills. In their formative years of instruction, children must be read to and provided opportunities to practice independent reading. Children must develop their ability to read with fluency and understanding in order to build their knowledge of the world.” This knowledge of the world comes with the need for life skills and logical reasoning sufficient to recognize through the language, what mathematical construct exists so it can be solved. The activity resources listed provide daily independent opportunities for students to rapidly ramp up their comprehension and subsequently improve in all curricular areas. There is enough variety to avoid declining interest levels while continuing to assist the student with achieving successful educational experiences.


GRANT TITLE ___If you’re ‘Hoppy’ and you know it, play a game! ___________


GRADE(S) __Third__________


1. Project Description: What do you want to do and why have you chosen this project? State clearly and be creative.
I am fortunate enough to teach in a school where we have active parents who want to help their children succeed. They have lots of opportunities, but are sometimes unsure of appropriate strategies to assist their children at home. Academics have changed dramatically since the parents were in school, and it gets more difficult to send meaningful work home that is not repetitive practice sheets. The demographics of our school are a majority of hard-working families who make sacrifices to provide a good education for their children by residing in a very small school district. This results in not having the huge discretionary funds that title one schools enjoy, and use to purchase these types of exciting educational games. I would like to acquire a set of family practice games that can be sent home with each student weekly to reinforce sound educational objectives while also improving the paths of communication between school and home, and requiring some home discussion of the objectives learned in school.

2. Objectives: What are your goals? What type of growth do you expect the participants to demonstrate? The objective should be realistic in terms of methods, staff, space, time, and student involvement.

The goals of this project are to provide interesting fun games for each student to practice as homework with a family member to reinforce the learning goals taught in school. Frog Publications has created an innovative system that includes these games as a working component.
According to the research on their website (http://www.frog.com/ ):
“Since 1997 Frog Publications educational materials have been used by every school adopting the HOSTS (Helping One Child To Succeed) Learning Program which is specifically named in the No Child Left Behind Act as an example of an effective program”….and about these learning games specifically, “The Family Fun-Pack Program (FFP) is a research-based parental involvement, test preparation, and homework program published by Frog Publications, Tampa, FL. It provides systematic self-checking practice and review of 25 skills with built-in reinforcement to promote long-term memory. This systematic daily practice assures that commonly taught and tested skills, vocabulary, and concepts are maintained and strengthened. The practice is formatted as a series of games to increase the likelihood of children and parents’ willing and cooperative participation. The same directions are used throughout FFP, so parents do not have to spend valuable time figuring out what to do with the material. They can use that time to give attention to their child as they use FFP materials. FFP combines the best elements of two other research-based Frog Publications programs into a teacher-friendly and family-friendly program that makes nightly review at home enjoyable and productive. The brief, consistent daily review of essential academic skills (from Drops in the Bucket) is combined with the learning and motivational features and easy consistent directions (from Frog System Learning Games). The result of that combination is a 24-week program of skill-review games, prepackaged in tough vinyl pouches to save teacher time. Students exchange their FFP game each week for a one that reviews the same 25 skills using different questions and a different colorful game board.”
This is a proven method to help all children succeed, and the expectation is that greater numbers of students will be completing homework, they may need less remediation or redelivery in class of tasks taught in the games at home, and it will help foster a community of learning as the families discuss their experiences with the games since they will rotate weekly.