The purpose of this program, which is funded through a grant form the Hanover Education Foundation, is to provide our early readers with quality non-fiction books that they can read independently at home. Although all students check out books weekly fromt he school library, they are often not able to read these books on their own. This frequent rereading of comfortable texts provides importatnt reading practice that not only builds reading skills, fluency, and comprehension, but also exposes our early readers to the format of information books, which differs from typical story format. They bring each new book home in a folder which includes reading tips for parents and a choice of activities that the parent and child can do together to enjoy and learn form the book. These activities involve parents as active parteners in their child's reading development by empowering them with skills and activities that are simple, yet powerful.
Children return the book and their response each week, and choose a new book.
Additionally, parents are invited to workshops to provide them with tips for supporting their child's early reading efforts appropriately and helping their child develop good comprehesion through responses to the reading. Our goal is to develop good readers and thinkers by involving parents as reading partners, providing interesting books at appropriate reading levels for easy practice, and exposing children to science and social studies content linked to the Standards of Learning. This comprehension difficulty has a direct impact on student's ability to master the SOL's. By providing students with a variety of titles at appropriate reading levels, we can meet these two challenges. Each theme basket include 4 copies of 6-7 titles.