Stephanie Emminger’s English class at Jennings County High School is the first in the county to read 2.2 million words in one month under the school’s new Accelerated Reading program.
Jones
Photo provided
For the last 25 years, Jennings County High School has used a reading testing and comprehension software called Reading Counts. This program helped high school teachers to track, test, and manage students’ reading skills.
In August, the program was transferred to a program called Accelerated Reader that also had been used for younger students.
Accelerated Reader will now be a single district program that should help the student learning curve, as it will be a single platform for everyone. AR also offered a much larger subject selection.
The new program also helps students enhance their ability to understand and comprehend the words they are reading instead of just trying to quickly get through the book.
Stephanie Emminger’s English lunch class read 2.2 million words in October, making this the first time that a JCHS class has read 2 million words in a month.
“The AR program is crucial to our school for student growth,” Emminger said. “Through AR, students can find materials to test over that interest them. It is a way to fit genius hour in the curriculum and allow students to explore subjects that interest them while building their vocabulary and comprehension skills.”
In 2022, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) conducted a long-term trend reading and mathematics assessments for 9-year-old students to examine student achievement during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Average scores declined 5 points in reading. Accelerated Reader should help in the student selection of diverse reading topics and subjects, including news articles.
Charlie Barber, one students in Emminger’s class, said, “Reading has helped me think outside of the box and to be more imaginative. It has improved my vocabulary and comprehension.”
Destyni Jones is a student at Jennings County High School. Send comments to [email protected].
