increasing students’ access to print at home
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Increasing Students’ Access to Print at Home
Amy Evans
Van Buren Elementary: Cedar Rapids Schools
2009-2010
The purpose:
To design a system that increases access to print at home for all students attending Van Buren
- Iowa Standard #5: An educational leader promotes the success of all students by acting with integrity, fairness and in an ethical manner.
To involve students, staff, and parents in the process to ensure sustainability of the system and a culture of readers. - Iowa Standard #2: An educational leader promotes the success of all students by advocating, nurturing, and sustaining a school culture and instructional program conducive to student learning.
A Little About Me Taught 12 years; 10 years in a Title I school Taught 8 years of summer school Married an avid reader and raising 3 readers
Van Buren Elementary School
About 400 PreK-5th grade students Title I, Reading First, and SINA school. Services about 70% Free/Reduced Contains Level I and Level II Special Education Highly qualified, highly motivated staff
Van Buren’s Plans School Improvement Plan:
During the 2009-2010 school year, Van Buren students will improve their comprehension skills….
SINA Plan
To reduce the achievement gap between the All with 33% not proficient in reading comprehension; students with IEP with 73% not proficient and 40% of Free and Reduced are not proficient
The Idea Began.. Attended Jo Robinson, Anita Archer, and
Richard Allington for Reading First in-services during the last two years.
Shared the same startling research on students’ access to print.
- Students in low SES houses have ½ book in their home versus middle SES houses where students have over 300.
Research Reported: Recent report by the Packard and MacArthur
Foundation found that the average child growing up in a middle class family has been exposed to 1,000 – 1,700 hours of one-on-one picture book reading time, the average child in a low-income family, in contrast, has only been exposed to 25 hours of one-on-one reading.
Children in low-income families have been exposed to over 1 million less words than their middle income classmates by the time they start kindergarten.
Further Research One-half of all adults in federal and state
correctional institutions cannot read or write at all.
60% of the kindergartners in neighborhoods where children did poorly in school did not own a single book.
Children from low-income families, on average, score 27 points below the mean reading level score for all students.
Food For Thought The National Research Council of 2000 stated that
most of the reading problems faced by today’s adolescents and adults are the result of problems that might have been avoided or resolved in their early childhood years.
The National Commission on Reading, 1985, stated that the single most significant factor influencing a child’s early educational success is an introduction to books and being read to at home.
More Food For Thought.. The most successful way to improve the reading
achievement of low-income children is to increase their access to print. Invest in Kids 2000
The results have indicated that those parents who received the Reach Out and Read intervention are 2-4 times more likely to choose book sharing as an activity.
Students that received 5 age-appropriate, high interest books over the summer showed a greater improvement on reading comprehension scores than students in traditional summer school programs. –Richard Allington
Book Bonanza Was Born November attend Richard Allington – why wait
for summer… let’s start now! Started designing a system and talking to other
schools to collect ideas. Discussed ideas with my principal and sent out 30
letters to local businesses asking for book drives or money donations.
Requested books from Van Buren staff and students
December/Winter Break Collected 1,000 books from staff, students, and
business book drives. Half-Price Books donated 2,500 books Money donated was used to purchase holiday
books Each student left for winter break with two books
to read. (800 books)
Parent Pre- Surveys Offered students free book at the initial bonanza
to return parent survey. 168/385 were returned: 44% “My child frequently chooses to read.” : 73% “We currently visit the public library at least
once a month.” : 27% Approximate number of books my child has at
home to read on their own: Average: 16 books
What does it look like?
Book Bonanza Evolved.. Twice monthly (total of 8) on Friday afternoons Four ways to get a book 1. $1 for each book ($$ shops first) 2. Exchange a book 3. Box Top for Education sheet ($1) 4. Teacher certificates –Target Students 4th/5th grade student ambassadors staff the
exchange and payment desks 3rd graders sticker books “Van Buren BB”
The Results… well have you ever been shopping the day after Thanksgiving?
To date 4,000 books have gone home!
300
369
271
527
492
365
349
533 15-Jan
29-Jan
12-Feb
Feb-29
19-Mar
9-Apr
22-Apr
7-May
Post-Surveys 100% of teacher surveys returned 49% of parent surveys returned (free book) 92% of student surveys returned
Question 1: Attendance 100% teachers 99% parents 99% students Question 2: Read their books 71% teachers 97% parents 93% students Question 3: Shows great enthusiasm for reading
82% teachers 97% parents 97% students
Asked “What Kinds of Books?” More non-fiction books (#1 answer of all 3 groups) Already a great selection (#2 answer of parent/teacher) Series books; Mystery/Scary; Cartoon characters Older chapter books
Asked “How could it be improved?” All three group agree on
what is needed! 1. More space or less kids
in the media center at one time.
2. More books especially non-fiction 3. More often
Several positive comments that it is great now.
The Next Steps Family Book Bonanza on May 20th
Fundraiser: Selling READ T-shirts
Every intention of sending each Van Buren student home this summer with 5 age-appropriate, high interest books
What I learned… Books are still valued and wanted by children Nothing can touch your heart like a child
hugging a book or being stopped in the hall to have a book talk.
Developing a system is time consuming, and every tweak seems to have a ripple effect.
Creating second-order change is complex and can conflict with prevailing values.