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Title I Schools
Title I Schools and Bridging the “Achievement Gap” in Literacy
Title I, Part A (Title I) is part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 and the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Under the new Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), signed into law in December 2015, Title I remains the foundation of the federal commitment to closing the achievement gap between low-income students and their peers.
The purpose of Title I is to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging state academic achievement standards and state academic assessments. This purpose can be accomplished by ensuring that high-quality academic assessments, accountability systems, teacher preparation and training, curriculum, and instructional materials are aligned with state academic standards so that students, teachers, parents, and administrators can measure progress against common expectations for student academic achievement.
Title I funds can be used to improve curriculum, instructional activities, counseling, parental involvement, programs, and to increase staff. The funding should assist schools in meeting the educational goals of low-income students. According to the U.S. Department of Education, Title I funds typically support supplemental instruction in reading and math. Annually, this program reaches over six million students, primarily in the elementary grades.
VocabularySpellingCity is uniquely qualified to meet the distinctive needs of all students, teachers, and administrators in supplementing the core literacy curriculum at Title I schools:
- Cross Curricular: VocabularySpellingCity’s scope goes beyond the language arts curriculum by building student vocabulary across all content areas. Extensive word lists are available for math, science and social studies. These are organized by grade level and are aligned to state and national curriculum standards.
- Reporting Requirements: Federal Title I data requirements include Reading and Math Assessment Data, Accountability Data, and Teacher Quality Data. VocabularySpellingCity offers recorded student data that’s easy to access and use for reporting requirements. This program feature facilitates teacher identification of student needs and assists in the development of a personalized curriculum based on student history. It also offers teacher professional development that meets the “Highly Qualified” designation.
- School-Home Connection: VocabularySpellingCity allows students to work on assignments at any time and from anywhere while recording their progress. This is an important step in strengthening the parent-teacher collaboration as both parents and teachers can access students’ online accounts to monitor progress.
- Computer-Assisted Instruction: As supported by a U.S. Department of Education meta-analysis, computer-assisted instruction improves students’ performance (Means et al., 2009). VocabularySpellingCity offers online learning that it is interactive, self-paced, and non-judgmental.
- Personalized Learning: VocabularySpellingCity’s activities and word lists can be easily tailored to all learners at every instructional level, including students in the lowest quartile and those designated as Special Education, ELL and/or Gifted. Customized vocabulary lists, effective learning strategies and enrichment activities are available for student and teacher use.
- Efficient: VocabularySpellingCity is a time-saving tool, with individual student accounts and automated record-keeping. The program administers and grades assessments, freeing up teacher time to work with students on areas of need.
- Accessibility: VocabularySpellingCity is web-based, available in multiple devices and in an app. For schools where computers are not available for every student, teachers benefit from access to printables for most activities. These include handwriting worksheets, vocabulary tests, and a wide variety of word games.
- Assessments: Students get immediate feedback on individual progress through regular practice tests. The program identifies areas of mastery and those in need of improvement.
- Affordability: Users may register for Free Membership to access spelling activities, or purchase Premium Membership at a low per-student cost for immediate access to all benefits.
Research
Research shows that a student’s understanding of a concept or skill is deeper when he/she is required to answer questions and recall the information about that concept. A study by Butler and Roediger (2007) tested the effect of various post-lecture activities on students’ long-term memories, finding that students retained the most knowledge when they took short-answer quizzes after a lesson. VocabularySpellingCity’s use of this approach is what makes it so effective.
Learning Strategy
VocabularySpellingCity’s learning strategy ensures students’ retention of content taught with games and activities that encourage students to think critically and enhance their comprehension. The program also addresses the issue of one-week learning cycles in the classroom, which have proven ineffective, with spaced practice methods for stronger vocabulary retention, vital for improved reading comprehension. VocabularySpellingCity gives students multimodal, multiple encounters with words in which they read, hear, speak, write, break down phonetically, and use the word in context. The predetermined weekly and monthly assessment of content learned increases the amount that is transferred to long-term memory. Premium Members can use the Assignments function to preset future activities and tests so students revisit their word lists at the recommended time intervals to ensure that they retain the material.
References:
Butler, Andrew C. and Roediger, Henry L. (2007). Testing improves long-term retention in a simulated classroom setting, European Journal of Cognitive Psychology. Vol. 19, Iss. 4-5.
Means, Barbara, Toyama, Yuki, Murphy, Robert, Bakia, Marianne, and Jones, Karla (2009). Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies. Project Report. Centre for Learning Technology. Available from http://repository.alt.ac.uk/629/ accessed 7/15/16.