[Editor’s Note: The Back to School Night story that originally appeared in this space contained incorrect data.]
The National Endowment for the Arts recently released the report, "To Read or Not to Read: A Question of National Consequence" (Nov. 2007).
The report's conclusions emphasize that parents and schools must work together to ensure that our students become better readers.
The report states that Americans, especially younger Americans, read less than ever and they read less well. Because they read less well, they have lower levels of academic achievement.
High school dropout rates are deeply connected to declining literacy and reading comprehension. With lower levels of reading and writing ability, people do less well in the job market.
Poor reading skills correlate heavily with lack of employment, lower wages and fewer opportunities for advancement. Significantly worse reading skills are found among prisoners than in the general adult population. And deficient readers are less likely to become active in civic and cultural life, most notably in volunteerism and voting. So what can parents and the school do to combat these concerns?
Reading Assessment
To better support your student's literacy growth, Culver City High School is emphasizing the importance of reading for enrichment and education. Recently Culver High students in grades 9-11 completed the Scholastic Reading Inventory, a computer-based reading assessment.
The inventory is designed to evaluate students' reading progress, set goals for reading growth and match students to books appropriate to reading levels.
In Scholastic Reading Inventory, the student reads a series of short passages taken from fiction and non-fiction books and articles. After each passage, the student completes a fill-in-the -blank sentence. Test results are reported, using a readability measurement called the Lexile. Think of the Lexile score as you would read the temperature on a thermometer to decide what kind of jacket to wear; a Lexile score can be used to decide how difficult a book to read.
Helping Your Child
After a student completes the assessment, s/he received a letter with her/his results. In addition, each student received a personalized book list that reflects the student's Lexile score and reading interests. These assessments will be used along with standardized test data and teacher recommendation to determine if students need a reading support class or other reading intervention offered at Culver High.
Some ways to support reading at home:
- Encourage your child to read books and discuss them with you.
- Set goals for your child of at least 20 minutes of reading per day. Because the Lexile system is also used to assign reading measurements to books, you can use the results to find books that are at an appropriate reading level.
Share with your child the kinds of things that you are reading. Talk about interesting things you read in the newspaper, a magazine article that taught you something new, a book that you enjoyed reading.
Pam Magee is the principal of Culver City High School
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