COMPTON — Understanding that each student has different learning needs, the Compton Unified School District late last month approved two programs that officials hope will meet those needs.
Known as the Waterford Early Learning Program, it is a digital curriculum that customizes instruction to meet children’s individual learning needs. It also provides a web-enabled tracking and data management system to help teachers monitor student achievement at any time from any computer on their network.
Teachers and staff will receive training and ongoing support from NCS Pearson, Inc. specialists. Training for preschool teachers on Waterford Software Integration will take place July 1 through Sept. 30, at a cost of $39,400. The funds will be taken from the district’s Title 5 budget.
The program introduces critical concepts in reading, mathematics and science through full-motion video, animation, songs, audio, stories, artwork, biographies, games and interactive activities. Going beyond the computer, supplemental materials can be used both in the classroom and at home. Collaborative learning is completed through interactive whiteboard lessons where interactive instruction covers phonological awareness and reading comprehension.
In math and science — using daily activities, number concepts and abstract concepts — children are expected to apply higher order thinking skills. This can be achieved, said Pearson specialists, by emphasizing conceptual understanding and problem-solving, while reinforcing basic skills through engaging drills and practice. Graphics and music bring the challenging concepts to life.
All Waterford lessons include “systematic, explicit instruction,” according to a representative, and by the lessons assuming that students had no prior instruction they are easy to use and comprehend. Reading — built upon phonological awareness, comprehension and vocabulary, fluency and language concepts — is accomplished by building literacy from the pre-literacy stage to fluency.
Visual stimulators, said Pearson representatives, prompt responses, while motivating feedback encourages learning. Instructions, they added, can be started, stopped and repeated in order to make sure that the drills hit home for every student. Highlighted text allows students to follow along, and roll-over text helps learners with pronunciations and meanings.
Each program only requires three minutes to get started each day and provides more than 450 hours of instruction through 15,000 activities within 2,500 lessons.
“Waterford will allow students in Pre-K to develop the early literacy skills necessary for success in Kindergarten and help to start our students off on a level playing field with peers in surrounding school districts,” said board member Satra Zurita. “Quality pre-kindergarten and elementary programs will lay a strong foundation for learning.
“Research has shown Waterford to be especially helpful for students with limited English, and when used with fidelity, students accelerate their reading skills to become proficient readers and thinkers by third grade. I am especially delighted that we have chosen a program that is highly ranked by independent evaluators like Florida Center for Reading Research,” she added. “Teachers and administrators have access to real-time, diagnostic reports, making this an accountable and measurable program that can support all schools in achieving their educational goals.”
The second program is the Thinking Maps Leadership Team Training Program.
“Based on thorough and well-accepted academic study and brain research, the eight Thinking Map tools correspond with eight fundamental thinking processes,” said a district report. “More than simple task-specific graphic organizers, the maps can be utilized individually or in various combinations to form a common visual language for students and teachers at all grade levels, in all subjects.”
This program will be carried out at a cost not to exceed $100,000, and will come from the district’s Title II budget.
Thinking maps are a set of graphic organizer techniques or visual teaching tools that encourage lifelong learning. “The one common instructional thread that binds together all teachers, from pre-kindergarten through postgraduate, is that they all teach the same thought processes,” said a statement from Thinking Maps Inc., who will be carrying out the training and doing follow-ups.
Circle maps are used for defining in context, tree maps are for classifying and grouping, bubble maps are used for describing with adjectives, double bubble maps are used to compare and contrast, flow maps are used for sequencing and ordering, multi-flow maps are used for analyzing the causes and effects of certain actions, brace maps are used for identifying parts or ‘whole-part’ relationships — for example, the anatomy of a butterfly — and bridge maps are used for illustrating analogies.
The Thinking Maps Professional Development Plan consists of one full-day of staff development and two or more follow-up days throughout the school year.
“Early reading readiness and intervention initiatives are CUSD’s prescriptive plan to harvesting the minds of students. As a … champion of science, technology, engineer and mathematics (STEM), I enthusiastically embrace the Waterford Early Reading Program, as a technological tool, which will build the internal capacity within our elementary students and fortify their ability to learn reading, writing and computation,” said board member Micah Ali. “Within the same vein, the deployment of Thinking Maps will make certain our students learn to organize, categorize and process complex ideas and concepts. If our students are to become lifelong learners, we must support cognitive skills development, encourage critical reflection and liberate creativity.”
