The Efficacy of Computer Assisted Instruction for Improving Literacy Skills in Grade 3



The Efficacy of Computer Assisted Instruction for Improving Literacy Skills in Grade 3

Research Proposal-Writing

Section 1: The Problem

Introduction

In previous times, an individual could graduate school with limited reading and writing skills and secure a job for a lifetime (Joseph, 2008). Though, in technology-oriented current era, an individual with limited reading, writing, and comprehension skills is less likely to obtain employment at entry-level positions (Barton, 2003). School districts are under educational and legislative mandates to increase students learning, skill sets, and success on high stake testing (Huntington, 2009). Because of the increased number of failing students, the mandate left administrators and stakeholders with the charge to select and evaluate evidence-based literacy programs to meet student needs and increase achievement.

The results of the study will assist the local school decision-makers on the efficacy of the CAI program, but state and national stakeholders in determining the impact that a particular CAI product has on increasing learning and promoting social changing a low-performing school.

Defining the Problem

The local problem that will be impelled the project study is the significant number of Grade 3 students not performing on proficient levels in reading by the end of the school term. The school selected for the study will be a low-performing elementary school, located in the Panhandle of Florida in a Title I school district.

For further elaborating the problem, several tables with the related information will be provided in the main project.

Rationale

Literacy development is a lifelong process that requires support at all educational levels (Jacobs, 2008). Efforts to improve literacy have gained momentum across the United States. More than 8 million students in Grades 4 -12 are struggling readers (National Center for Education Statistics, 2005). For this reason, schools continue to embrace a philosophy of inclusion and teachers are challenged to meet the learning needs diversity, which exists in the classrooms of present times (Henderson, 2009). The rationale of this paper will be to make understand the current fact that through various Computer Assisted Instructions, the students can learn to read in an interesting way which will be engaging to the students.

Definitions

Various terminologies will become the useful component of the project work, so the definitions of that terminologies will be provided to make those terms comprehensible.

Significance

Some of the importance of CAI programs will be provided in order to make the reader clear that what is special to have the capacity of delivering reading materials to students that meet their individual learning needs and what improvements have been made by CAI programs over the past decades. Many software companies claim their CAI product can provide progress monitoring, improves learning gains, provide individual instruction and learning paths in forms of drill and practice, remediation, tutorial and improve achievement (Roblyer & Doering, 2009). Moreover, it will be justified in the project that how and to what extents CAIs allows teachers to accurately show documentation of progress by giving instant feedbacks, and by assisting students with ...