PERU — About 160 iPads were given to Dirigo Elementary School pupils in kindergarten through grade three this week, Principal Charles Swan said.

The school is participating in a Maine Department of Education pilot project on literacy called MoMEntum, which will run until the summer of 2018.

Kindergartners and first-graders each received an iPad; second- and third-graders will share one between every two students.

“One of the most critical aspects of this pilot program is that we get both literacy coaching and technology coaching along with the actual iPads,” Swan said. “The school will have a literacy coach on hand for three to four days a month and a technology coach for one to two days a month. Having technology is great, but having coaches who will support us in using the technology in a meaningful way is the key ingredient.”

On Tuesday, third-grade teacher Laura Johnston watched her students get familiar with the iPads.

“It’s pretty exciting,” she said. “We’ve got literacy and tech coaches coming in and there’ll be some cool apps that we can install and practice fluency and sight word recognition and engage the kids more.”

Johnston also said she thought it would be “easier to target those reluctant readers” with the iPad apps.

One of her students, Henry Waleik, said he liked that they were taught how to draw a lobster on their screens, while classmate Autum Knox said the lobster-drawing was “a little bit difficult.”

Student Lee Ward Richard said it was “really fun. I got to put my hands on the screen.”

Koda Tracy said he liked the iPads better than the laptops because he could touch the screen.

Dirigo Elementary School has 125 laptops shared by 365 pupils across six grades.

Swan said having the iPads in the lower grades will free up more of the laptops for upperclassmen.

“The iPads are not replacing our literacy instruction, but (they are) instead supporting it, enhancing it, and helping to make it more individualized,” he said. Also, the iPads will be kept in the classroom during the day, not shared in a cart as the laptops are.

“This will allow teachers more flexibility in how they use them and when they can use them,” he said.

Department of Education literacy specialist Heidi Goodwin was at Dirigo Elementary School for the start of the MoMEntum project. She said the greatest feature of the program “is the literacy professional development that will be happening in the school. All the teachers (of kindergarten through grade three) will be working with a literacy coach,” she said.

“Student engagement is something that we need to promote and I think that 21st-century learning is all about technology and this is getting it into the hands of our youngest. Hopefully, we’ll be seeing the end results of improved achievement scores,” Goodwin said.

Besides the iPads, each participating classroom has an Apple TV.

“The Apple TV makes it so the teacher can walk around the room and can still see what the kids are doing at their seats (while at work in another) area,” Goodwin said. “So, it’s much more interactive in the sense that the teacher and kids can move with their iPads and the students can hook up (to the TV) to be able to display their work.”

Once the MoMEntum project ends, the school will retain all of the iPads and the rest of the technology gained from the program.

“And the knowledge that the teachers have gained stays right in the school,” Goodwin said.

Nine schools in Maine are participating in the pilot program. “All the way up to Limestone and Calais and all the way down to Sanford. And there will be a coach at each of the schools,” Goodwin said.

mhutchinson@sunmediagroup.net