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welcome to moving forward i'm diane williamson
last year Greenville Elementary began a program to encourage their students to
read more both in and outside the classroom
called the million minute reading challenge the idea came out of a
professional development seminar
with doctor Tim Kazinski a professor of literary education at Kent State
in order to make it more fun each year's challenge has a theme
that's tied to the number 1,000,000 this year's theme is from the movie
Despicable
me and I happene to drop in on the day the secondary teachers who manage the
program
were dressed up as characters from the movie Sally Plast outlined three
important factors required for achieving
literacy one is the parent involvement and modeling good reading
like reading bedtime stories that kinda thing and then
the volume reading at home which is
where the million minute reading program came from increasing that volume
and number three the volume of reading in the schools
These are all NOT FAKE
reading techniques. That's kind of a key phrase that we're using -
not fake reading - we don't want fake
reading where the kids are just sitting there pretending like they're reading which
happens sometimes but it's authentic reading
where they're really engaged in their books. they're asking each student in the
school to read twenty minutes each night and the students have read
for over 600,000 minutes so far. Some of the parents have even said
now for the first time they've noticed that their children are
actually enjoying reading and
even reading more than the time that we're requiring them to do
we tried really hard to try to choose something that was current and motivating and
the kids were really excited about
they love seeing us in our costumes they
think that is so cool and fun. And last year
I was Buzz Lightyear, I flew through the
gym and through the students and we
had a fun time and that was instead of infinity and beyond we said to a
million
and beyond. One of the most important things, and
Mr. Razinski shared this with us is that if
students are not reading on grade level by the end of
third-grade then it's likely that they're gonna
struggle for the rest of their entire school career with
seems kind of scary and shocking
but the statistics are showing that the research
So that's one of our goals is to help the children
read more which in turn will make them better readers.
in case you haven't heard tomorrow is the fourth annual Floyd Central High
School Dance Marathon
to benefit Riley Hospital for Children the Dance Marathon is a fun event with
line dancing music
live bands crafts and games with everyone remaining on their feet for the
entire time
the event runs from 2 to 9 p.m. at Floyd Central and if you'd like to
sponsor a participant or just make a donation
go to donate dot Riley kids .org
and search on Floyd Central High School Dance Marathon 2014
If you've got some great news to tell about your school please let me know
about it
and for all the latest news and announcements remember to find us on
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check out our website and follow us on Twitter at NAFA success i'm diane
williamson and we'll
next week on moving forward