Abstract:

Located in a rural school district approximately 135 square miles in size and serving a total student population of roughly 10,000 students, they were two South Carolina elementary schools on a mission. The first school sought relief from its dismal English Language Arts and writing test scores and results not commensurate with teacher efforts. Their students had to progress, but how?

The second school served the non-English speaking children of migrant workers in a summer program whose mission was to increase the students’ English language fluency. Every “Please, no English,” increased the teachers’ frustration. Drowning in a sea of Spanish, the teachers knew that they were getting nowhere – fast! They had to help these children learn English, but would it ever happen?

From this presentation, learn how one rural South Carolina school district’s creative incorporation Apple technology helped achieve substantial improvements in two unusual elementary level literacy programs --elementary English Language Arts and writing and an English Language acquisition initiative for the children of migrant workers. Learn how this district’s creative approaches helped to achieve its performance goals and produced happy teachers, students, parents, administrators and bus drivers!

Keywords:

Technology, elementary schools, English language, student achievement, performance, goals.