Welcome to Mrs. Pierski's Reading Web site. You will find information regarding the Scholastic Reading Counts Program, along with reading strategies to help your child.

Scholastic Reading Counts is a program designed to assist teachers in differentiating learning in the classroom. It is a tool to be used, not a curriculum. Students are periodically tested to assess their independent reading level and then are assigned a reading "lexile" level. This helps students to check out books at their independent reading level. Upon finishing their book, students take a computerized test that assesses comprehension. Instant feedback is given to the students at the end of their quiz. A progress report is printed and sent home with the student. This in turn is a wonderful communication piece for parent/teacher/student.

As the students pass quizzes they obtain points. The number of points a book is worth is related to the difficulty of the book. A reward system has been set in place for the students. We have a 25, 50, 100, 250, and 500 point club. Every first and third Tuesday of the month certificates are handed out in front of the school at morning prayer. Students also earn prizes for their hard work.

If you are uncertain about a lexile of a book, you can visit http://www.lexile.com/fab/. You will type in the title of the book and it will show you the lexile. We have over 40,000 quizzes in our system. Your child needs to check at school to make sure there is a quiz for their book. Newer titles may be added to our quiz bank as the year progresses.

The Scholastic Book Fair is here! A tip to picking out books is to have your child write down the books they are interested in and check the "lexile" on line. This way you are not purchasing books that are too high or too low. It is also important to look at the content of the book. Lexile levels are found for every grade. You do not want a 2nd grader reading an 800 level lexile book that has a RL (reading level) of 7 (seventh grade). You can open up a book and read a few pages to check the content. Your child's teacher can check on our SRC program for RL.

I will have more information for you in the weeks to come. Please feel free to email me with questions that you may have. This will give me ideas of tips that I can post to the web site. kpierski@stacc.net

Happy Reading!

Mrs. Pierski