Dear Judy,
At Synergy School, we do the Drop Everything and Read (DEAR) program.
School-wide, K-8th grade, everyone in the entire school does nothing but read
every Thursday morning for 30 minutes at the start of the day. In middle
school, they do DEAR time twice a week. This program promotes a reading culture
at the school, promotes use of the school library and smaller classroom
libraries, and adults model good reading behavior because they drop everything
to read. It does not feel forced since kids choose what to read. We also have
additional quiet reading time in each class, read-aloud, and reading/listening
centers. Middle schoolers have a "wide reading" requirement for language arts.
They have free choice of books but those books must come from some diverse
genres and forms (e.g., short stories, poetry). They are required to blog about
the books they have read.
Best regards,
Susanne
Susanne DeRisi, Librarian
Synergy School
1387 Valencia, San Francisco, CA 94110
On Feb 15, 2017, at 8:17 PM, Judy Cha <jccha34@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi everyone,
I need some feedback regarding implementing Scholastic Reading Counts or AR,
something the principal at my school wants me to do.
I feel that my heart is not in a program such as this, where students read
lexiled books and take quizzes to incentivize them to read. To me, it feels
kind of forced.
Do any of your school librarians use Scholastic Reading Counts or AR? Can you
give me the pros and cons?
If you don't use these programs, can you provide feedback as to how your
school library may otherwise motivate kids to read? Through another program,
or other methods?
I would appreciate prompt feedback, as I'm supposed to meet a deadline to
implement this program, and would like to gather as much information as
possible about whether it is truly beneficial.
Thanks all,
Judy
