Dear Parents/Guardians:
Last year language arts teachers at S.I.S. started a school-wide
reading initiative that was designed to foster life long readers. The results
and feedback of this initiative have created a positive reading culture at
S.I.S and will therefore be continued this school year. The central goal of the
English Language Arts department is to establish a reading habit in the busy
lives of our junior high students.
Through independent reading we want
to develop reading fluency and stamina, which result in increased reading rates
and thus, help students develop confidence, build vocabulary, and improve
writing.
It is our hope that we can work
together with parents to ignite and sustain the pleasure and passion of young
readers as well as to instill a comfortable confidence in students as they
build stamina for reading in preparation for college and career.
Independent reading will be based on
student choice, either through recommendations by teachers, through a student’s
own research, or through recommendations made by fellow students. Each cycle students visit our library to hear book talks about
potential reading titles and check out books. We strongly feel that students
should choose books that interest them in the hope that it will encourage
students to become lifelong readers.
Finally, we ask for your help. We do require that children read at least two hours per week outside of
school. We have posted this requirement as homework on the class blogs. We
have talked to students about the importance of reading at home, and they know
that we expect them to read at home. It may not seem that we assign much
homework in language arts, but that is because we want the students to read and
read and read.
We hope that reading will be a shared experience in your homes
this school year and that you value the positive effects family literacy has on
your child’s education.
If you are so inclined, please consider donating books you
no longer need to our classroom libraries. Our classroom benefits from
castoffs.
Thank you for your support.
Shellilee Ballum
