Program Challenges NMS Students to Become Accelerated Readers

By Jeff White

Jean Bugay, the Newtown Middle School’s media specialist, will tell you statistics confirm that most children drop the amount of reading they do after the sixth grade. It is in the spirit of heading off this reality that Mrs Bugay recently launched her fourth annual Accelerated Reader (AR) program, now entering its second four-week session.

The AR program is geared toward sixth graders, students at the pivotal ages preceding the teenage years who more often than not begin to choose television and video games over nighttime stories before bed. “Kids nowadays are saturated with media: TV, CDs, video games [and] computers,” says Mrs Bugay.

“I wanted to provide them with an incentive reading program that would encourage reading,” she adds. “Media is shaping the lives of our children and as educators, we need to use it as an effective tool that will enhance learning, not detract from it.”

The large shelf in the back of the library here at the middle school chokes with books, both fiction and nonfiction, each labeled with a point value that reflects levels of difficulty. What students have been doing is choosing a title that interests them, reading it, and then taking a comprehension test on one of the media center’s computers. Points are awarded to students based on their performance on the test, and each student has to get a minimum of 60 percent of the questions right to receive credit.

First-year teacher Elizabeth Stevens, who teaches sixth grade reading, brings her students down to the media center regularly so that her class can take their book tests and restock book bags with more selections. Students will read these books during their Silent Sustained Reading period and at home, often testing the limits of their bedtimes with reading lights that stay on well beyond the hours that they should be sleeping.

“I’ve never seen kids so excited about reading,” Ms Stevens says.

The motivating factor is the point system, where students compete for the recognition of “highest scorer.” But they’re reading, Mrs Bugay will point out, and indeed the success stories that come out of this program center around the students who have discovered a love of words they did not realize they could have.

Jenny Cupero used to think that reading was a complete waste of time. Laughing innocently, she explains that she felt that reading text that meant nothing to her could not compare to the time she could spend outside instead. But then this program came around, and she was forced at first to participate. She discovered that she liked to read. “It gave me a better taste of reading, and now I like it more than I did,” she says.

David Mudd used to read at most four books a year. Since the start of the program, he has read 10, and says that he has no desire to stop now.

Steve Vichiola also admits that he did not used to read much, which has all changed since he has gotten caught up in the AR program. “I’ve never read so many books in my entire life,” he muses. “It [has been] really fun and I’ve read some really cool books. They had a good selection.

“I read my first book,” he continues, “and thought it was really interesting, so I began to like the other books offered.”

Steve’s story is echoed in dozens of other students who have not only come to realize that reading has a valuable, and interesting, roll to play in their lives, but have also begun to determine the types of books toward which they gravitate.

Elsa Gillis did not realize that some books have stories to tell that may have special relevance in her life. She now seeks out tales about kids her age, who are interested in the same things she’s interested in, who feel the same things she feels. She explains simply, “I like reading books about kids like me.”

Thus far, the AR program has given many of these students a sense of pride. “I though [the program] was fun because you could read and get awarded,” says a recent AR graduate, Tory Marlin. “It felt really good, felt like you accomplished something.”

Each session in the AR program is four weeks long, and each of the five sixth-grade reading teachers takes a turn at the incentive. A typical afternoon in the middle school’s media center will find new AR students searching for their first books, AR graduates looking for the last tale in a series, and students in the middle of the program pecking the answers to reading quizzes on multicolored IMACs.

But will these students continue to read, say, when points are replaced with the dog days of summer? Yes, insists Elsa Gillis. She admits that although the point system provided a good incentive to plow through book stacks, it also helped develop a habit, which will remain long after the last computer comprehension test. “Even though the program is over there are a few books I didn’t get a chance to read, so I’m going to,” she says.

“[AR] showed how fun reading is, so we’ll read after the points are done.”