Smithville Elementary School Receives Gold CAPS Award

January 15, 2011

Students at Smithville Elementary have participated in the Fast ForWord program and received the Gold CAPS Award.

The FastForWord program develops and strengthens memory, attention, processing rate, and sequencing-the cognitive skills essential for reading intervention program success. The strengthening of these skills results in a wide range of improved critical language and reading skills such as phonological awareness, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, decoding, working memory, syntax, grammar, and other skills necessary to learn how to read or to become a better reader.

Dr. Bill Tanner, Principal at Smithville Elementary School, shared the good news with the Board of Education on Thursday night. "Last year our Fast ForWord program won the Gold Cap award as being one of the schools that uses the Fast ForWord program. That's a program our children go through that trains their brain on how to read. It's a fifty five minute period that they go through during the day for thirty days. I try to schedule it so every class gets to go in there sometime during the year. We try to get it done before the end of the year. Last year we included the first grade in it also. We have increased the program. So we have won that award again this year. The Fast ForWord program develops and strengthens memory and attention. I feel like it is a good program. Our teachers are working hard everyday. Our paraprofessional who is in charge of the program does a fantastic job with that. Winning this award shows that we're using this program to the nth degree. I think it was developed to begin with as a program to help brain injured people. In using that, they found out it was also an aid in helping people learn how to read."

FastForWord reading intervention supports the existing curriculum-it doesn't replace it. It is aligned with the No Child Left Behind state mandates and has been an important factor in AYP success. And, most importantly, the gains students achieve are lasting, the result of enduring positive changes in their processing skills and learning capacity.

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Northside Students Participate in Scholastic Book Clubs' ClassroomsCare Program

January 15, 2011

ESOL students from Northside Elementary in Mrs. Melissa Roysdon's classroom are helping other children while they help themselves this school year by participating in Scholastic Book Clubs' ClassroomsCare program, a philanthropy-based literacy campaign designed to teach children about the joys and importance of reading and giving - and to encourage them to read everyday to lead better lives.

This fall, each student is challenged to read 10 books and, in turn, Scholastic Book Clubs, a division of Scholastic, the global children's publishing and media company, will donate one million new books to disadvantaged children nationwide.

Through this year's ClassroomsCare program, called "The United States of Reading," participating classrooms are reading for charities in their home states. They can log onto the ClassroomsCare Web site to keep track of their progress along with their state's progress. Students, teachers, and parents are invited to go onto the site to see how the reading is making a difference. More than one million books will be distributed locally through three national charity partners whose shared mission is to help put books in the hands of the hardest to reach and neediest children: Reach Out and Read®. Save the Children®, and the Paiama Proaram.

"I smile every time I hear about a school where through their generosity and hard work, students are making a difference and improving the lives of others by participating in ClassroomsCare," said Judy Newman, President of Scholastic Book Clubs. "In order to better prepare the children of the 21st Century to live complete and successful lives, we need to energize them to read more books, and read everyday. And showing children that their hard work pays off and they can make a difference in the lives of others is motivating and important as they grow up. Through the ClassroomsCare program, students aren't just reading, they're reading to give."

"Each year, students and teachers alike are thrilled to take part in Scholastic Book Clubs' ClassroomsCare program and read in order to give books to children who otherwise might have none," said Mrs. Roysdon. "This year, our class read 280 books!"

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