ACCELERATED READER
 

Top Readers 2007-08

1st Nine Weeks

Whole School

Devin Griffee 236.1 pts.
Justin Fitzjurls 165.0 pts.
Luke Heberling 143.0 pts.
Vivien Gude 131.1 pts.
Katelyn Musil 109.0 pts.


Seniors

Samantha Holle 102.9 pts.
Justine Walsh 90.1 pts.
Kirk Duensing 53.0 pts.
Lindsey Coggins 49.3 pts.
Brittani Whiting 46.6 pts.

Juniors

Justin Arpin 79.8 pts.
Natalie Boss 67.5 pts.
Caitlin Frohberg 64.2 pts.
Shelby McNary 62.2 pts.
Eliza Benteman 58.8 pts.

Sophomores

Vivien Gude 131.1 pts.
Heather Brown 58.2 pts.
Jeff Saylor 56.7 pts.
Arissa Virden 47.2 pts.
Tim Grayson 46.0 pts.

Freshmen

Lucas Heberling 143.0 pts.
Ross Bergsten 87.2 pts.
Katie Atkinson 76.4 pts.
Ellie Musil 70.3 pts.
Chris Winslow 65.1 pts.
 

8th graders

Justin Fitzjurls 165.0 pts.
Arthur Helvie 93.0 pts.
Kaitlyn Wilson 80.0 pts.
Blake Zimmerling 41.8 pts.
Ali Pishny 40.2 pts.

7th graders

Devin Griffee 236.1 pts.
Katelyn Musil 109.0 pts.
Stephen Kinzel 102.6 pts.
Jesse Medina 41.2 pts.
Brooke Claycamp 37.8 pts.

Past Top Readers
2006-2007 Ross Bergsten 462.0 pts.
2005-2006 Aaron Boeschling 568.3 pts.
2004-2005 Tanya Rightmire 538.4
2003-04 Tess Heberling 593.6 pts.
2002-03 Kat Chans 920.1 pts.
2001-02 Tess Heberling, 513.3 pts.
2000-01 Dava Whitesell 613.1 pts.
1999-00 Tera Kindle 435.3 pts.
1998-99 Tera Kindle 714.4 pts.
1997-98 Elizabeth Gray 597.8 pts.
1996-97 Shena Wolf  727 pts.
1995-96 Suzie Pralle 520.8
1994-95 Steph Peek 293.6
1993-94 Chris Adkins 189.5
1992-93 Carissa Nester 505.5

Seventh and Eighth Grade Nine Weeks Requirements

10 pts.--C  
15 pts.--B
20 pts.--A

Points cannot be earned for books read previously as a class assignment.

Seventh and Eighth grade students may read from any of the Accelerated Reader lists.

Rewards

Every junior-high student, in good standing in all classes, who accumulates 200 pts. for the entire year by May 24, 2007 will receive a $50.00 savings bond.

All seventh and eighth grade students who accumulate 125 pts. by May 1 will be a guest at a pizza party during seminar in the last weeks of school.  You may collect on both the bond and the pizza party.

High School Nine Weeks' Requirements

10 pts.--C 
20 pts.--B
30 pts.--A

Only one book worth 5 pts. or less may be used each nine weeks to accumulate these points.

Freshman and sophomores must read from either the Freshman-Sophomore list or the Junior-Senior Accelerated reader list.

Juniors and seniors must read from Accelerated Reader Junior-Senior list.

Points cannot be earned for books read previously as a class assignment

Rewards

Every high school student, in good standing in all classes, who accumulates 300 pts. in the entire year by May 24, 2007 will receive a $50.00 savings bond.

All high school students who accumulate 175 pts. by May 1 will be a guest at a pizza party during seminar before school is out.  You may collect on both the bond and the pizza party.

Commentary on Success of Program

Since the 1993-94 school year, The Accelerated Reader program has been used to fuel our independent reading program at Valley Heights Jr-Sr High School, Blue Rapids, Ks.  It makes up one-third of our reading program combining with a whole language approach from the English classrooms and technical reading from all classes.  

During the 1993-94 school year we made the earning of at least 10 points per nine-weeks as mandatory for all students.*  It became an integral part of our School Improvement Plan.  Since that time we have seen a revolution in reading at Valley Heights with test scores on reading comprehension in our ACT scores skyrocketing.   Scores from students who took core subjects went from an average of  23.3 in 1993-94 to 25.9 in 1996-97.  Scores from students who were not taking core subjects went from 18.3 in 1993-94 to 22.3 in 1996-97.   Needless to say, we are elated with the success of the program.

This improvement has validated our involvement in the program.    We have over 7600 tests with 450 of those homemade. We follow basic guidelines learned in Reading Renaissance with the exception that teenagers tend to be harder to motivate with incentives than younger students.  Therefore we require students to earn points with incentives given for more points.  (See requirements and incentives section.)

One major adaptation of the program we have made involves assigning reading interest levels to all books.  We have three levels--7th-8th grade; freshman-sophomore; junior-senior.  The level reflects more who should be reading the book than the reading level of the book.  An example would be a book on teenage pregnancy that is written at the 6th grade reading level.  This book would be placed on the junior-senior list.  The junior-senior list contains the College Bound disks, Bridge to Adult Reading disk, Classics disk,  Pulitzer Prize winners, many of our locally made or traded-for tests, and other ones that  have a more adult theme.  Any student may read up to a higher list, but students cannot read down without permission from an instructor.  This encourages our juniors and seniors to do college bound reading while giving us some latitude in making exceptions.

Our program was highlighted in the November/December, 1997, issue of Advantage: the Journal of Learning Information Systems, in an article entitled "Reading Practice Raises ACT Scores."

 Points were changed on all books in the Jr/Sr high to the new ATOS readability formula  in the 2000-2001 school year.

* (In 2003-04 this was modified to allow students to pass English if their percentage in the class combined with the percentage for AR was a passing grade.  See handbook for details.)