The Greene County School District Summer School Program recently came to an end.

District Reading Specialist Julie Neal says the Summer School Program is for students in kindergarten through 8th grade that need additional support in their literacy skills. She says they determine the students that are recommended to attend by reviewing reading and comprehension scores every spring. 

The program consisted of four main subject areas, including phonics, fluency, comprehension and writing. Neal says the K-4th graders had a blended-style of learning by incorporating all four subjects together, whereas the 5th-8th grades rotated each subject every 20 minutes, during the two-hour daily program. Neal describes how she thinks the design of the program breeds success.

“I think that the way that we do it keeps the kids engaged, it gets them up and moving, and focused. I think with the elementary, we’re doing a lot more hands-on things, and the same with the middle school doing things that interest them.”

Neal adds that they also incorporated a new concept of a design challenge. A design challenge is where students are given a situation that they have to work together and build, using a limited number of resources. Neal says this concept was done in a variety of ways, including some students testing out solutions to a unit on “The Three Little Pigs” at the end of the program with a trip to the Science Center of Des Moines.

“The kindergarten and 1st graders got together and they had to build structures, and they had their little pig inside the structure, and then they had to test it with the fan to see if it would blow down, like the fan was the big, bad wolf. And if it didn’t then they had to go back and they had to rebuild it and figure out what they needed to do to make it better.”

Neal thanks the non-profit group Bringing Optimism and Opportunity to Students and Teachers (BOOST) for providing the funds to allow the Science Center trip, and for all the teachers and volunteers for helping with the Summer School Program. To hear more from Neal, listen to today’s Community State Bank in Paton Let’s Talk Greene County program.