Students hit books at record pace

By Barry Porterfield
Staff Writer

May 12, 2008 09:46 am

— Book pages have been turning at a record pace at Pauls Valley High School as it appears a computer program has helped to make reading the thing to do this year.
Getting the credit for the reading explosion is Scholastic Reading Counts — a computer program that tests a student’s comprehension of the books they’ve read.
The program has worked so well the number of books checked out at the school’s library this year have more than doubled.
As evidence librarians Jan Caldwell and Mary Martin point out about 4,000 books have gone out to students during this 2007-2008 school term compared to fewer than 2,000 the year before.
“This is the first year the high school has had a testing program on books,” Martin said.
“It’s been a real challenge to get kids to read. We decided to go with this program to encourage kids to read more.”
The concept did in fact catch on and has been “kind of feeding on itself” as the number of books read by students continued to rise.
“There was no outside reading before these tests. Now students can read classroom assignments and test on them,” Martin said.
“They could get all their points doing it this way but we’re hoping to encourage students to go beyond just what’s required in the classroom,” she said.
“The program has provided the perfect encouragement for students to read for pleasure and for points.”
The program actually got started during last year’s second semester but there were problems.
Working through the wrinkles the program got off to a great start this year and has been going strong ever since.
The computer program provides tests on books. Each test is designed with a bank of questions making each one a little different.
Students receive points for passing a test based on the difficulty of the reading material.
Martin said students can take tests on books they choose to read or assigned reading in English classes.
“We have also found that students are encouraging other students to read by talking about what they have read themselves,” she said.
“The librarians and teachers now hear students discussing the best book or the best series of books their friends should read.”
Caldwell and Martin, along with the help of principal Peter Campbell, rewarded the top male and female readers in each class this week with a limo ride and lunch at a local restaurant.
Students earning that reward were seniors Jessica Daniel (295 points) and Skylar Parker (161), juniors Lablant Hickman (205) and Daniel Mikel (301) and sophomores Janne Klassen (376) and Connor Lucas (136).