Book talk

Literacy lab encourages students, faculty to read, read, read

By Carol Rolf

LITTLE ROCK — “What are you reading?”

That’s the question asked every day, several times a day, by students and faculty alike at Dardanelle High School.

Principal Marcia Lawrence said an emphasis is being placed on “literacy lab” this year, and many faculty members have been, or are being, trained to promote the literacy lab.

“Literacy lab is not a class - it’s a mindset,” Lawrence said. “Teachers may go through the extensive literacy lab training or they may learn about the mindset from others who have been trained and have given them the information.” She said literacy lab is a three-year ongoing training sponsored by the state Department of Education in which the trainees are exposed to a massive body of research about adolescent reading.

“Literacy lab teaches that it is of paramount importance for high school kids to read - a lot,” Lawrence said. “This reading includes difficult text, magazines, newspapers and books that they select - often from the genre of ‘young adult novels.’ Therefore, all our teachers read and encourage students to read - every where, every day. We have a large reading requirement in English classes and we have a one-semester class for freshmen in which they do nothing but read. To manage this requirement we use the tests from Accelerated Reader - this is how we are sure they are actually reading the books. We could have done the old standard book reports to gauge reading or some other instrument teachers made - we have chosen to use the Accelerated Reader tests.”

“Literacy lab led us to examine a huge body of research about reading, the process and its importance,” Lawrence told her faculty as they began their literacy lab training this year. She said the research shows reading and writing ability successfully impacts a person’s life, noting that “84 percent of high school drop-outs cite lack of confidence and facility with reading and writing assignments as a central reason they gave up on school.”

She further stated, “It is not what you read, it is how much you read that gives people the benefit.

“The magic number for high-schoolers seems to be one million words a year or about 25 books,” she said. “Assigned text, magazines and newspapers can be a part of this one million words, but the biggest success comes when students in high school read ‘young adult novels.’”

In addition to the required reading, students at Dardanelle High School are also encouraged to read independently. That’s where Kelly Wurst, the school librarian, comes in.

“It’s my job to support the teachers in literacy lab, and to make sure that books are available for the students to read,” she said. “If a student comes to me and requests a book that we don’t have here in the library, I can order it and get it here in a few days.

“Literacy lab encourages students to read anything they want to read,” said Wurst, who received her degree in business education from Arkansas Tech University in 1987 and her master’s degree in instructional teaching in July 2007. This is her first year as librarian in the school’s media center.

Once the student finishes his book, Wurst administers the Accelerated Reading test.

Erin Robison teaches 11th-grade English at Dardanelle High School. She is now in literacy lab training.

“It’s a wonderful program,” she said. “I’ve seen at least one student reading who has never been areader before. And the students are always talking about books; they’re having actual conversations about books.

“It (literacy lab) has changed the whole culture of reading here at the school,” Robison said. “It’s made the students more open to reading. They can read anything they want to. We’re still teaching the classics, however, and we’re still doing class work.”

Sue Bush teaches ninth- grade and 12th-grade English. She is national board certified in adolescence language arts.

“The literacy lab is exciting,” Bush said. “Its basic principle is to grow readers through self-selected reading. We don’t become readers just because we read one book. Some authors hooks us and we grow into a reader quite painlessly.”

Bush said she sees students and adults alike reading more and more. “And they are excited about it,” she said.

She added that every staff member at Dardanelle High School is taking on the responsibility of teaching literacy. “It is shared equally,” she said. “We are all encouraging reading and writing in all of our classes.”

Sue Chiolino has been teaching 10-grade English for “105 years,” she said with a laugh.

“Literacy lab is very interesting, very enjoyable,” she said. “It’s got to help our students and their test scores as well. I’ve been preaching this same sermon - the importance of reading - for as long as I’ve been a teacher.”

Elizabeth Franks teaches English and French at Dardanelle High School.

“The literacy lab has already made a change in the school’s culture,” she said. “We have students talking about books. Just this week, I heard a coach talking about the book he has just read. It’s great being in a school where all the talk is about books.

“We hope the literacy lab will have a positive effect on the students literacy scores at the end of the year,” Franks said. “We hope the scores will go up.”

River Valley Ozark, Pages 66 on 10/09/2008