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Goal

A great teacher, Earl Nightingale, once told a story called “Acres of Diamonds.” In it an African farmer sold his farm and perished penniless after searching the countryside for diamonds. Meanwhile the new owner of that very farm discovered one of the largest diamonds ever and secured his fortune.

As a result of last year’s grant, we implemented the Reading & Writing Skills Folder Games Set in a single 3rd grade classroom. We have witnessed the power of these captivating games that learners want to play, individually and with friends. The visually vibrant games have been instrumental in meeting students’ diverse needs, collectively boosting our “learning-to-read so they can read-to-learn” process.

Rather than seeking a different grant, this year we want to “mine our acre of diamonds” by expanding our offering of Grab-and-Play resource sets to the remaining 7 third grade classrooms. With a proven resource, we know we will foster student empowerment and self-direction during the critical academic turning point of third grade.
 

What will be done with my students

Third grade is a vital juncture in grade-level performance assessment, especially in independent English reading and comprehension.

During our daily intervention time, we nurture and reinforce foundational reading skills. We arrange time into 3 cycles to (1) identify student-specific needs through computer enrichment lessons, (2) target any deficits through teacher-supported lessons and (3) provide independent practice opportunities.

We have found Grab-and-Play games to be impactful tools greatly enhancing the learners’ engagement during individual practice rotation. The students pull a specific game matched to the skill-need identified earlier by the computer assessment tool and teacher. They are able to self-check, as well as celebrate their personal progress on their path to mastery of reading comprehension. The games also support versatility within the practice time. Students utilize them independently, with partners, and collaboratively in small groups.
 

Benefits to my students

As an outcome of last’s year’s grant, we have also developed monitoring and student/teacher communication tools to integrate with these games specifically. It has been a mission and joy to adapt this tracking system to meet our specific classroom needs. A beyond-expectation result has been more effective goal achievement with markers to build student self-esteem. Celebrating each victory has anchored success habits, and set a strong foundation for ongoing student enthusiasm about language and reading. Now we want to expand those results in every 3rd grade classroom in our school! As a traveling resource teacher, I plan to collaborate with all the 3rd grade teachers to implement this tracking system.

In last year’s grant proposal we quoted Mary Poppins who inspired generations with, “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down!” This year we want to augment that message by “mining our acre of diamonds,” granting opportunities for proven engagement and success in all our third grade classrooms.
 

Budget Narrative

The need is 7 complete sets of Grades 2-3 learning games, 1 per third grade classroom. We have included 2 additional sets of K-Grade 1 learning games, to meet the broad range of current student skills. This total of 9 sets would impact at least 200 readers this year (about $6 a student), and continue to reap benefits in coming years.  

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