Dear Saint
John’s School Families,
Our book
fair last week was very definitely a success.
A big “thank you’ to Jen Metzler
and Cindy Castaneda for cochairing
this event. We appreciate each of you
volunteers who “manned the store” during the school day and during
parent/teacher conferences. Thank you
also to all of our young/student customers for making their wise purchases.
How blessed
we are here at Saint John’s School to have such dedication to and understanding
of the importance of reading! This is a
value that we all share. In addition to
each of our classroom teachers, two very special staff members have developed
two separate programs to enhance and support the daily instruction of
reading. Donna Monet and Sarah Smith
are to be commended for all they have given to make reading a priority at Saint
John’s.
Donna Monet, our school’s librarian, was hired
just at the right time to open our beautiful school library a few years
ago. With her experience and expertise,
our library has become a most important center in our school. Childrens’
“love of reading” can only grow with the opportunity to enjoy a library
such as we have here.
Please read
on to learn the specifics of the Battle
of the Books that our library coordinates.
This is the fourth year that this voluntary reading incentive program is
offered for students in grades 3 and
4. The purpose is to encourage students
to read good books and have fun while competing with peers from other schools. The library hosted an engraved traveling
trophy for the school year 2011-2012, as a result of our fourth grade team
winning the competition.
How does a
student participate? A student participates by reading from the book list
provided for that years’ America’s Battle of the Books. The books are 50% on, 25% above, and 25%
below grade level of the participants.
What is the
“Battle?” A typical “Battle” is a
tournament or game, like the College Bowl, in which students’ teams earn points
by answering questions about the books on the book list. They play several rounds, each against a
different team. At the end, points are
totaled and the top teams are invited to a “Grand Battle”.
Among the
many contributions that Sarah Smith is
responsible for bringing to Saint John’s School is the Accelerated Reading Program. You
may have noticed the Angry Birds bulletin board as you walk down the hall of
the Elementary School. This is our Accelerated Reader (AR) board which tracks each student’s progress
toward their trimester goals (grades 1-5). AR helps motivate students to read and
complements classroom teachings. It is a
great way to work with students at their own individual reading level set by
their teacher. They enjoy tracking their
own progress on the bulletin board. When
students meet their AR goals by the
end of the trimester and also have achieved an average of 85% or better on
their quizzes (which means they get a sticker on their bird), they are treated
to a special lunch that Sarah arranges
with Mrs. Schmitt.
Why AR?
1. Makes essential reading practice more effective for every student. 2.
Personalizes reading practice to each student’s current level. 3.
Manages all reading activities including read to, read with and read
independently. 4. Builds a lifelong love
of reading and learning.
How does it
work? Student reads a book. Visit Arbookfind.com
to see all available titles. Student
takes a quiz. Accelerated Reader Enterprise offers more than 140,000 quizzes to
help motivate and monitor students’ reading performance. Student accumulates
points. Depending on the level of the book and the performance of the student
on the quiz, students earn points toward their goals set by their teacher.
Thank you Donna and Sarah and all of you parents
for making reading a top priority here at Saint John’s School.
Shalom, Lois Schmitt
