PORT HUENEME : Computers to Help Students Read, Write
The Hueneme Elementary School District on Monday approved a joint project with IBM that will bring computer-aided writing and reading instruction into kindergarten and first-grade classrooms beginning in mid-November.
The School Technology Assisted Reading project will help teachers at Williams Elementary School deliver IBM’s Writing to Read Program--a method of instruction using words and phonics to teach writing--to 200 students, Williams Principal Mary Samples said.
“This way is more of a teacher-directed method,” Samples said. “With a lab situation, you need an extra person. This way, the technology is right in the classroom.” Ordinarily, children go to separate labs to work on computers.
The program is a two-year project, which will help IBM determine if the program would be better used in a classroom setting than in a lab, Samples said.
IBM gave a total of $400,000 worth of computer equipment to six districts in the state, including Justin Elementary in Simi Valley, Juanita Elementary School in Oxnard and Loma Vista Elementary in Ventura. Each will receive 16 computers and software, Samples said.
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