Computers Key In on 1st-Grade Readers
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First-graders at Chandler Elementary School don’t have to just look to their teacher to learn their ABCs.
An interactive computer program called WiggleWorks, run by Cal State Northridge’s campus literacy center, helps the 6- and 7-year-olds learn to read and teaches them computer skills at the same time.
The computer follows along with what the students are learning in class and reinforces the teachers’ lessons. Then each day, two students at a time break away from the class to practice what they’ve learned.
The children draw and color pictures they derive from their vocabulary words. They write stories and, if they can’t pronounce a word from their reading books, the computer will say it for them.
Of course, the kids go for the computer’s special effects.
“It’s fun to blow up things,” said Jasmine Russo, 7, watching as the vocabulary words on the screen blast apart, allowing her to put them together again.
Raelene LaBorico, a first-grade teacher at Chandler, the first Valley site for the program, said when she gives a lesson she controls what the children are learning, but when the kids use the computer, they control the extra help they receive.
Phil Kligman, director of the CSUN literacy center, is animated as he watches the children type simple sentences on the screen. A teacher since 1970, Kligman holds a doctorate in education and is a language arts specialist. Although statistics are not yet available to tell how well the computer reading program is doing, Kligman said he can see student improvement.
“We’re seeing a great amount of word recognition, phonics through writing and more independent reading,” he said.
WiggleWorks is funded through private donations and costs about $6,000 per classroom to get the program up and running, Kligman said.
So far, only the three first-grade classrooms at Chandler Elementary School have WiggleWorks. Three second-grade classes will have the program in September along with first-grade classrooms at Abraham Lincoln Elementary School in Simi Valley.
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