Vocabulary Volcano

I work at an all-girls, college prep, start-up charter school in the Atlanta area. We are incredibly diverse, with about 65% African American, 17% Asian, 10% Hispanic, and 8% White. Additionally, we're a Title I school, with about 36% students eligible for free/reduced lunch. I am the special ed teacher and, as such, work with all of our students with IEPs (Individualized Education Plan). Most students have speech disorders, learning disabilities, ADHD, and some have behavioral disorders. I serve our students in an an inclusion program, so all students with disabilities are in classes with their non-disabled peers. In addition to special ed, I do pull-out services for students who are at-risk academically.

Our charter school is in a unique situation. We are not associated with any districts, so we have students come to us from 10 districts around the metro area. This means that some students come from high-performing public, and even private schools, while others come from traditionally failing public schools with high drop-out rates. As a college prep school, we hold ALL of our students to high expectations, and this poses a challenge in the first years (6th/7th grade), because students come in with drastically different abilities.

Beginning in January, I will be working with students in both 6th and 7th grade who have been identified as struggling readers. We will essentially start back at the beginning, working to solidify our phonics, decoding, and spelling, building up our vocabulary, and increasing our reading comprehension. I will be doing a regular resource reading class with them, using the Orton-Gillingham method of instruction, which helps to build the fundamentals of language (phonics, decoding, spelling). Since the girls are older, there will be an essential vocabulary component as well - we will be creating our own Vocabulary Volcanoes, because we'll be exploding with so much new vocab knowledge! In order to build vocabulary, we need dictionaries! This intensive, small group reading class will put these struggling readers on the same level as their peers who have come from high-performing elementary schools so that they will succeed in all classes.

One of the downsides of being a start-up charter school, especially one not associated with a school district, is that we have very limited funds. In our first year, we operated on a budget of $3,000/per pupil! We are fully funded this year, but do not have additional funds to pay for textbooks, additional technology, etc. By buying a small class set of dictionaries, you will help these students to expand their vocabulary, and ultimately, comprehension!