EIR Program:
Teachers in grades K-6, instructed in EIRŽ and supported over a school year in cohorts, provide 20 minutes of daily instruction to groups of five to seven students who need more guidance from the teacher in learning to read.
In kindergarten the program is based on whole-class instruction with small-group follow-up for the children lowest in oral language and emergent literacy abilities. Activities include listening to stories for enjoyment, discussion of these stories related to children's lives, creative dramatics, emergent literacy development (concepts of print, rhyme, phonemic segmentation and blending, letter and sound recognition), with an emphasis on exposure-not mastery.
In grades 1 and 2 this instruction follows a routine and regular pace with regular monitoring of progress, and includes repeated reading of familiar stories, coached reading of a new story, phonemic awareness training and systematic phonics instruction, guided sentence writing, vocabulary and comprehension instruction. The teacher focuses on coaching the children in strategies that will make them become independent readers.
The grade 3 and 4 programs provide 20 minutes of small-group instruction four days a week using narrative and informational picture books and focusing on attacking multisyllabic words and fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension strategies. In grade 4 children learn to use the reciprocal teaching model. On the fourth day, the children read their picture book to a younger child who is in the grade 1 or 2 EIRŽ program and they also coach these younger children as they read their EIRŽ story.
For more program information, please contact Ceil Critchley by telephone at 763-785-0701 or by email at ccritchley@comcast.net
Required Computer Software and Hardware
Software Recommendations
Flash Plug-In
Macromedia Flash Player is required to view some of the content on the EIR CD. You can download that player here: http://www.macromedia.com/software/flashplayer/
QuickTime
QuickTime 6.0 or higher is required. It is extremely important to only have one version of QuickTime on the computer. Installing a new version does not remove the previous version. Having two versions will cause videos to perform slowly, freeze up or not function at all. All older versions must be removed.
This can be downloaded here: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/
Web Browser
Macintosh: Safari 1.2, Internet Explorer version 5.2 or higher and Netscape 7.02 or higher are supported. Safari or Internet Explorer is preferred.
PC: Internet Explorer version 6.0, Netscape 7.02 or higher and Mozilla Firefox 1.5 are supported. Internet Explorer is preferred.
Download Netscape here: http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/default.jsp
Download Internet Explorer here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/default.mspx
Adobe Acrobat Reader
Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0 or higher is required to view PDF files on our site. Please be sure all previous versions are cleanly removed / uninstalled before installing newest version.
This can be downloaded here: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
Hardware Recommendations
Both Windows and Macintosh computers are supported. The computers must be capable of running versions of the software listed above. All computers must have sound capability with speakers and/or headphones.
Screen Resolution
A minimum screen resolution 800x600 should be used to display all elements of the site correctly. This site is optimized for use with a screen resolution of 1024x768.