Celebrate Reading: SIS students have passed the reading practice quizes on 15,211 books that they read this school year!!!!! That is 179,526,852 words!!! WOW!!! That is with 50% of our students scoring 85% and above on their reading practice quizes. Way to Go SIS students. Renaissance Learning: Accelerated Reader(AR) Accelerated Reader reading management software, the most widley used reading software in schools, enables teacher management of multiple types of student reading activity, each of which has been shown by the National Reading Panel or other national studies to boost student reading achievement. The activities AR helps teachers manage include: 1) reading aloud to students, 2) independent guided book reading, 3) Paired and repeated reading, 4) reading textbook material, 5) reading magazines, and 6) reader applicaion of higher- order skills of the kinds that appear on standardized literacy tests. It gives guidance and immediate feedback to teachers and students. The overall goal of this type of instructional system is to frequently assess ongoing work, monitor individual progress, provide informative feedback to student, adapt instruction as needed, and ultimately improve overall student performance. Sometimes misunderstood as a system of extrinsic rewards, AR's reading points are actually a calibrated metric of reading volume, reflecting amount of text read, academic learning time, comprehension level, and difficulty of material to inform instruction. STAR Reading: STAR Reading is a computerized diagnostic assesment of phonemic awarness and other early language skills. STAR Reading scores represent how sutdents performed on the test compared with the performance of a nationally representative sample of students. These scores present a "snapshot" of achievement at a specific point in time. As with any test, it is important to remember that many factors can affect a student's test scores. STAR Reading test scores give only one picture of how a student is doing in school. Coming Soon: October 1, 2008 we will have access to all AR Quizzes, Parents will be able to access their child's records, and you will be able to check you books at home with the AR quiz list. I will be sending home information after Fall Break. 2008/2009 Rewards program for AR: This year students will be working to earns points for quizes passed with 80% or better. Each student will have their own personal goal for each month. If students reach all their goals in a quarter they will be able to attend a Rockin' Readers' Party. There will be three parties December, March, and May. If a student does not reach their goal to attend the party they will enjoy a quiet time of reading.