Close to 350 students at Sassarini Elementary School enjoyed a party on Friday, May 29, to celebrate their participation in the school’s Accelerated Reading Program.
The innovative program offers students a way to find books easily at an appropriate reading level, improve their reading skills, test their reading comprehension, and become more computer literate in the process. Teachers are able to monitor their students’ progress, and keep track of many details regarding each student’s reading habits, including their strengths and weaknesses.
“We are so pleased with the results of the AR program,” says Mary-George Simonitch, the school’s librarian. “I’ve never seen the children so excited about reading, and because their success in the program is dependent upon answering computer-generated questions about the books, their focus and comprehension is greatly increasing. They love using the computers.”
Once they’ve chosen and read a book, the students earn points based on the difficulty of their reading material, and how many questions they answer correctly on the computer quiz. The school rewards the point-earners with various prizes, including special privileges and items such as bookmarks, gel pens and decorative notepads.
“Some of the most popular prizes have been donated by supportive members of the community,” notes Lenore Lohnes, Sassarini’s computer lab operator. “Wine Country Chocolates, Gramma’s Pizza, and our local Baskin-Robbins ice cream store have been especially generous to our program. The kids love winning their treats, and feel proud to have their accomplishments respected by the owners of these companies.”
Sassarini has just installed 31 brand-new computers in their lab, thanks both to the fund-raising efforts of their Organization of Parents and Teachers and to the Sonoma Valley Unified School District. They plan on having computers in each classroom connected to the AR site next year as well, which will enable students to take the Accelerated Reader quizzes easily, as soon as they finish each book.
