Reading: The Basis For All Learning
According to the Arrowhead Union High School website, the language arts department teaches the cornerstones of English: reading, writing, speaking and listening.
Included in these cornerstones are other school-wide initiatives. Arrowhead has had a reading initiative for the past six years, possibly longer, which has resulted in Achieve3000, the Word of the Week, and reading level assistance, according to language arts teacher Terri Carnell.
Carnell says, “Reading is an integral part and basis of every subject.”
On the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress Reading Proficiency Test, 27 percent of twelfth graders were below the average score and only 38 percent were above.
According to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, 65.4 percent of 2013 Arrowhead tenth graders are proficient or advanced. However, despite this statistic, Arrowhead tenth graders had significantly higher proficiency and advancement percentages in every other subject. For example in mathematics 72 percent of students were advanced or proficient. In all other subjects more than 90 percent of students were advanced or proficient.
Each language arts class has a selection of books that are required to read throughout the year. For example Of Mice and Men and Catcher in the Rye are classics which are usually read each year by the freshmen and sophomores. The complexity of the themes and language of the books change with the course.
Students are also expected to keep a novel each year in order to implement annotations, says Carnell.
Achieve3000 is also used for ninth and tenth graders.
“Achieve3000 believes in the proven power of differentiated online instruction to improve students’ reading and writing, and prepare them for college and career success,” according to Achieve3000.
The Department of Public Instruction requires a method of students’ lexile measurements, says Carnell. She says it has improved in the past two years. She also hopes to see it used as a source of learning material, as opposed to unmethodical articles students choose.
Carnell also believes that the Sustained Reading Program would be effective and would demonstrate the value of reading. The Sustained Silent Reading Program allows students to quietly read for a specific amount of time each day. According to the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, a 1993 study showed that students who completed a 18 week silent reading program improved by almost two grade levels.
Arrowhead has a large library at both North and South campus with a large selection of books, together containing nearly 2,500.
“AHS students utilize novels for both recreational reading and their classes, access ebooks on Overdrive, and seek research materials,” says language arts teacher and library media specialist, Stephanie Polkowski.
Polkowski also says they tailor library materials to student needs, according to circulation, curriculum, and requests.
