Students soar past reading goal

Students love to read at Peachtree City Elementary School and it shows.

This year approximately 400 students across all grade levels passed 26,040 Accelerated Reader practice quizzes for the 2000-2001 academic year compared to 8,727 from last year.

"This is an incredible achievement. We had set a goal for the students to pass 2,000 tests a month and they have far surpassed that goal," said Lynn Craig, media specialist.

School officials recently celebrated the students' success in the reading program by organizing a parade from the school to Southland Nursing Home. Residents lined up outside to wave to the students as they paraded through the parking lot carrying banners representing their success.

All students who had participated in Accelerated Reader were in the parade. The grand marshals for the event were Principal Lynda Lambeth and Peachtree City Councilwoman Annie McMenamin.

Before the festivities began, McMenamin read a congratulatory letter from the mayor and City Council.

"We commend Peachtree City Elementary School's students who have been reading books and testing their comprehension throughout the year. This is a well-deserved victory and Peachtree City is thrilled about this inspiring occasion," said McMenamin as she read the letter to the students.

Accelerated Reader is part of Reading Renaissance, a major initiative to improve students' reading ability by increasing reading practice and motivating students to read more books within their reading level. Three key goals are at the heart of Reading Renaissance: improve test scores, create a lifelong love of reading and develop critical thinking skills.

The Accelerated Reader portion of the initiative is a computer program that tests students' knowledge of the books they have read. A student selects and reads a book, takes an Accelerated Reader practice quiz, and the computer adds the quiz results to its database and generates a report for the student and teacher.

In addition to being active participants in the Accelerated Reader program, Peachtree City Elementary also has five model classrooms. The model classroom is a program developed by Reading Renaissance to support and encourage educators who are implementing sound techniques as well as recognizing those who demonstrate outstanding commitment to the principles and practices of the initiative.

The state of Georgia has only 882 model classrooms. The five teachers who have the model rooms at the school are Alice Elfer, Betty Stricklen, MarryAnn Babb, Rhonda Jones and Roderick Bailey.

Also, the school's media center is one of 44 in the state to be named a model library. This recognition is given to libraries whose support of Reading Renaissance teachers and students have resulted in measurable increases in student reading performance.

Back to News Home Page | Back to the top of the page