Linda Williams

Reading Resource Teacher

Saylor Elementary School

Parents throughout the Portage Township Schools may soon be receiving a letter stating that their child has qualified to receive Title I services. For many parents, this letter raises questions such as, "What is Title I?" and "How was my child chosen?" Here are a few answers to these and other questions.

When most people refer to Title I, they are actually talking about Title I, Part A of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). With $12.3 billion in federal funds authorized for fiscal year 2004, it is the largest federal education program for elementary and secondary schools. Title I funds are targeted to high-poverty schools and districts and used to provide educational services to students who are at risk of failing to meet state standards. In Portage, six of our eight elementary schools currently qualify for Title I funds, based on each building's percentage of students receiving free or reduced lunch.

Student selection has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with whether a child receives free or reduced lunch. The program is based entirely on academic need, serving those students most "at-risk" of reading difficulty. All students in grades kindergarten-2 are evaluated by their teachers and given various age-appropriate assessments. These scores are entered into a spreadsheet, and a ranking list is developed. Students are selected based on their rank order, with those most in need of assistance getting top priority.

Our program at Paul Saylor is based on a prevention model: just as a healthy diet and regular exercise will prevent developing some medical conditions, providing our students with a strong foundation in early literacy will help them develop into strong readers.

In order to provide students with the strongest start possible, many of our Title I resources are used in kindergarten. Our most important resource is people: including the Title I teachers, the assistants, and the extended day kindergarten teacher.

Title I provides for the Extended Day Kindergarten program, which allows 34 students to receive additional instructional time. Aside from this program, the Saylor Title I team comes into the half-day kindergarten classes to do an intensive intervention program. Working with the classroom teacher and her assistant, we are able to divide the class into small, flexible groups to work on those necessary early reading skills. Some of the students are able to master those skills at a faster pace, so they move more quickly into higher level reading and comprehension skills. Other groups spend more time on the foundational skills, with smaller group sizes for those students most in need of help.

In both first and second grades, small groups of students are pulled out of the classroom to work intensively in the Title I room. Once again, the students are grouped with others working at a similar level, all working towards the same goal of improving reading ability. Our goal is to get students reading as much as possible, as soon as possible. "The more you read, the better you read."

The opinions expressed solely are those of the writer.