It’s starting out as an amazing new school year with a new Literacy supplement program. Administrators Principal Joseph Adeyemo and Assistant Principal JoAnn Grier at Terrace View Elementary School worked hard to pave the way to get the Accelerated Reader Program for each of the students at Terrace View.
The accelerated Reader program is a supplemental intervention that may be useful in encouraging children to engage in more independent reading. This program encourages the reluctant reader and enhances the self motivated reader. With this program, it is one way you can see if a student understands what he/she reads independently . It assesses students understanding of what they read and provides diagnostic feedback to a teacher for each student; the program gives teachers valuable information about their students reading skills, specialized data such as time spent reading, word count collected from books read, flags for problem areas, etc. all included with a click. If the STAR reading assessment is included along with AR testing program, teachers can show student growth in reading over time. In todays climate of mandatory standardized testing, data collection throughout the year is critical.
What can parents do at home to encourage reading? One of the best things you can do is read with your child. You can model the activity by reading yourself…on a regular basis, a little every day. Have books readily available at home or visit the library on a regular basis. Accelerated Reader helps with reading fluency because as with most things, reading requires practice and more practice leads to greater profiency.
At the end of the 2016-17 school year, teachers, volunteers and staff at Terrace View worked diligently to scan the books on campus to label under the Accelerated Reader Program. A Handful of the library and classroom books were outdated and were unusable for the Accelerated Reader Program.
If our community would like to help Terrace View build their Accelerated Reader book library, the school welcomes any donations of books that are in good useable condition and approved in the Accelerated Reader Program for levels K-3, 4-6 grades. You can check to see if books are useable/approved in the Accelerated Reader Program by logging into arbookfinder.com . If you type in the name of the book you can see if it is AR usable and what level they are. I know the school would appreciate any AR book and it doesn’t have to be new---good used condition books are awesome! If you are able to donate, You can drop books off at the school office: 22731 Grand Terrace Rd, Grand Terrace.
Terrace View kicked off the new Reading Program on the morning of September 27th with Guest readers introducing and reading the book ‘Only one You” a book by Linda Kranz. Each child painted a rock fish inspired from the book. Terrace View along with a local sponsor created a beautiful rock garden on school grounds which will display the rocks painted by the students and staff as they commit to reading. The rocks will form a beautiful literacy garden to remind students throughout the years of their love for the inspirational story and for reading. Thank you to Barnett Real Estate for sponsoring this project.
One of our Guest readers, SMSGT Tim Hamblin of MARCH ARB and a parent to a Terrace View Kindergarten student said he read the book over the weekend to be ready for today’s reading and the inspirational message of the book made him tear up. He was proud to be able to read this book to his child’s Kindergarten class. I am certain this is one story his child will remember for years to come, beaming radiantly while sitting on his classroom reading carpet surrounded by his classmates as his dad dressed in his military uniform proudly read this wonderfully touching and meaningful story.
In the evening, students and their parents were invited to return to school for one more reading of “only one you” read by Assistant Principal JoAnn Grier. They then participated in a scavenger hunt to find items related to the story “There was an old lady who swallowed a fly”. Students received Reading Buddy Teddy Bear kits and were able to “stuff and assemble” their own cute cuddly Reading Buddy bear, which included a customTerrace View Bear Tshirt for their bear. It was beary cute! The school raffled off books and prizes and encouraged each child to begin their readiing journey. The message was loud and clear, “today’s readers are tomorrow’s leaders”…As a parent of twins at Terrace View, I appreciate the way the message is being sent by Teachers and Staff at the school. That each child is unique and special and the specific book they chose gives the message to be true to yourself and that we all make mistakes but you have the ability to change your path and make things better.
Terrace View Staff, students and parents would like to thank all of our wonderful guests for being a part of this very valuable Reading Kick off—its amazing to have people from all over and all different areas that come together and give their time to show support of young students.
Thank you to our guest readers from MARCH ARB- SMSGT Tim Hamblin, SrA Robert Becerra, Captain Frank Hanson, SrA Vania Godoy, TSGT Kevin Duffy, SMSGT William Ralph Griffey; Grand Terrace Fire Crew, Mike Gregory, Dave Rose, Tony Robles; Ms. Kimberly Barrett, Mary Shaw, Program Director Girl Scouts of San Gorgonio, Grand Terrace Mayor Darcy McNaboe, Brennan Meija, Red Power Ranger Dino Charge, Emilie Gleisberg,former TVES alumni, Jody Barnett and Jackie Mitchell.