Students in third through sixth grades are participating in Scholastic Reading Counts!, a reading achievement program with a library of thousands of best loved titles. Rue's goal is for each student in these grades to read at least 25 books independently this year. The more a child reads, the more a child can achieve. Students have taken the Scholastic Reading Inventory on the computer which generated a lexile level for each student. Students read a book on their easy/fluent lexile level and then take a quiz over that book on the computer. Students must pass that quiz in order to move on to another book.

To continue to grow as a reader, encourage your child to :
read books in the appropriate lexile reading range (from 50 lexiles above to 100 lexiles below the measure indicated on his SRI (Scholastic Reading Inventory). If you need a list of books email his teacher.

• select books on different topics, fiction and nonfiction.
• read at least 25 books a year, as well as a selection of newspapers and magazines.
• read for enjoyment and to find information.
• practice reading strategies such as determining cause and effect (asking why or what caused an event to happen), making inferences (using what you know to understand something the book doesn't tell you), and predicting what will happen next in the book.
• ask questions (who, what, when, where, why, how) while reading to understand books.
• relate personal experiences and knowledge to books read to understand the topics presented.
• compare and contrast characters, settings, events, and point of view across books read.
• use the dictionary and context clues such as the sentence or surrounding sentences to define unfamiliar words.
• build vocabulary by reading and discussing books.
• use new vocabulary in conversation and in writing.
• write letters, journal entries, poems, and stories (fiction and nonfiction).
• discuss and write about books read, stating an opinion and supporting it with details from the books.
• evaluate ideas presented in books an articles read.

Encourage your child to read for at least 30 minutes a day and discuss the books your child reads. Your involvement is critical to your child's success.