|
Lonsdale Elementary's Summer ELL Program |
|
For the 2nd year, the Great Schools Partnership is funding a pilot ELL (English Language Learners) program for rising Kindergartners at Lonsdale Elementary. The majority of students attending are from Guatemala, with Kanjobal being the language spoken at home. The program also includes one African student.
The goal of the program is to have children entering into Kindergarten be as
prepared as possible. To have the most effective results, the program has a very small teacher to student ratio. The program focuses on the skills included in the "Knox County Targets for Kindergarten Entry". The teachers focus on teaching recognition of the 26 alphabet letters and their sounds. All of the children are mastering basic math skills like counting to 20 and recognizing numerals. The children also learn to name and sort by color, shape, and size and learn positional, directional and quantity words. By the completion of the program, each child will learn to write their first name correctly using appropriate upper and lowercase letters.
This intense summer program will help a group of children succeed as they start Kindergarten, rather than feeling frustrated and behind as they start their academic careers. The success of this program can be attributed to the hard work of Lonsdale principal Lisa Light and her staff. |
|
| Mandatory Summer School |
|
This summer, while many teens are sleeping late and enjoying just hanging out, over 600 rising 9th graders are attending 8 weeks of mandatory summer school. The Summer Bridge program enables students who have struggled in 7th and 8th grade with reading/language arts and mathematics to master essential concepts in these areas before starting high school.
Students who were identified for this program were notified in October of 2010 and continued to receive notification of their 8th grade progress after each nine week grading period. In order to progress to 9th grade, the students must successful complete the Summer Bridge program.
To prevent barriers from attending this program, it is being offered at 14 area middle schools and transportation is provided. The Summer Bridge offers 4 weeks of intense language arts/reading instruction and 4 weeks of intense math instruction. In addition, the students receive help in study and organizational skills, critical thinking and problem solving, and activities that emphasize high school preparation, career planning, conflict resolution and leadership development.
The goal of this program is to have all those that complete the eight weeks feel prepared for the academic rigor they will encounter in high school. |
|
|
|
And don't forget . . . |
|
Read with your child,
it's the most important 20 minutes of your day! |
|
|
