In the extended day program after the regular classroom day is over, librarian Teresa Frommel is seeing students read books like crazy, and time is running out for their hapless principal's taste buds. The extended day program also includes fourth-grade teacher Pamela Dunigan's writing skills class. Frommel tests the children in the after-school program on their Accelerated Reading achievements. Accelerated Reading is a system-wide reading encouragement program where students earn points by reading.
Every student is encouraged to achieve a minimum number of points for the year.
Once the reading bug bites, most of them move well beyond the minimum requirement. With the added incentive of seeing Wiman downing a plate of creepy crawlers, they're reading more books than ever. The extended day program also allows time for snacks and homework. In the writing skills program, Dunigan is preparing students for the state Terra Nova writing test in February where they will have 35 minutes to write a narrative on a suggested topic. They can go wherever their writing skills take them.