Our 5 to 6-year-old campers use a computer program named Lexia Core5. This adaptive blended learning program accelerates the development of literacy skills for students of all abilities, helping them make that critical shift from learning to read to reading to learn.
They put on the headphones and fall quiet as they focus on the activities in the personalized lesson they are on so they can get a small treat afterward.
Each camper works on a lesson with several skills within it, each with several activities that must be completed to finish the skill.
One of the campers is doing an activity in which he is told the word and given the scrambled letters, which he has to rearrange to form the word.
Another camper is shown a picture of an object, given four sliders, and listens to the word pronounced in syllables. The camper must put one slider down for each syllable in the word. As he moves through the activity, he gradually gets more and more correct, smiling and pumping his fist when his answer is right. He takes a break to enjoy a pink starburst when they are passed around to each of the students who are now focusing and making progress on their lesson.
One of the other campers does an activity where he places six images into one of two categories that are also represented through drawings, while the camper sitting beside him is given letters from a section of the alphabet and uses the alphabet provided as a reference to put the letters into alphabetical order.
During their daily schedules, each camper works to improve their skills a little more, through reading, art, or another activity, by trying their best and being open to learning.