Welcome to our literacy blog - Join the conversation

Our focus at Churchland Middle this year is improving student literacy. We can't increase our graduation rates or raise SOL scores without improving basic reading skills. We need to get back to the basics... join our school literacy blog... help generate the innovative ideas... talk about reading experiences... discuss great books... share strategies that work... we need to address student literacy as a community. Why?
Data published from the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) report that 69 percent of 8th grade students in the U.S. students fall below the proficient level in reading comprehension at their grade level. Equally significant, 26 percent of students read below the basic level, which means that they do not have sufficient reading ability to understand and learn from text at their grade level. In our city, the statistics are even more alarming - more than 40 percent of our 8th graders read below the 25 percentile. This means that we send almost half of our students to high school functionally illiterate. What should schools do to improve student literacy? Do our students read enough in class? What can parents do to encourage more reading in the home - what are we modeling - are we reading? Are TVs, video games, cell phones and computers replacing books? Or maybe the question is - What is my child reading on the internet? Can we use technology to encourage more digital reading? I say the solution is more simple than we think - get back to basics - find a good book, find a quiet place (turn-off the TV, video game, cell phone and computer - maybe a Kindle or iPod), get comfortable, and read a fabulous book - temporarily let your mind escape... Join the conversation...