What did we do at DATA and what can other schools learn from our experience?
Background
Most charter schools start with the knowledge that the money received will be the marginal amount not awarded the public school by the absence of one student. This means that the other students have paid for the library, cafeteria and other amounts of the school.
Grants are needed to provide charter schools with the infrastructure. See the An charter school amistad.edu
After eighteen weeks, the school established the following pgrogram
Goal of 500 books per classroom (recommended in a web site)
Class notebook for each student to mark down reading notes and techniques and for marking down a summaruy of what was read at school for 30 minutes.
Five readings are given each week and students are asked to write the answers to 5 questions for each reading
What's the main idea
What might happen next
What is your reaction to the reading
What is the author's opinion
What leson did you (the reader) learn from the piece?
Reading journal to write what was read during the 30 minutes at home and 30 mintues at school. The goal is to record what we view
note one word or key page of each book that was read during the 30 minutes of reading in the day time. the notebook is passed around from student to student for them to indicate what they read.
Large picture books for students who are visual. Big photos so you can pretend to be in China or Scotland.
vocabulary goals for students including the list of words at freevocabulary.com and number2.com
high interest magazines scope, scholastic, etc. for students to read and enjoy in class.
Costs
establishing the two spiral notebooks = $1.20 per student
pens 50 pens per week
photocopies to hand out
FCAT vocab lists
magazine subscriptions
photo books
for interesting high interest for students
National Geographic magazines for students to flip through.
Song lyrics analyze a song
web lists to view documents
web sites on CD to help students learn poems
photocopies of poems that are recommended for middle school (6th to 8th grade)
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What do you think?