HISD elementary students have the chance to avoid the “summer slide” and instead Slide into Summer Reading with the Astros.
Continue readingTag Archives: reading
Third annual Houston Reads Day brings heavy hitters to Bruce ES
HISD Superintendent Millard House II, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, and the Houston Texans’ Wade Smith were among 400 volunteers who read to students for the third annual Houston Reads Day.
Continue readingNation’s report card sheds light on COVID-19 impacts on students in core education subjects
The 2022 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) released data highlighting national declines based on fourth and eighth grade math and reading assessments administered in the spring of 2022. The nationwide assessment included a sample of 5,400 fourth and eighth grade Houston Independent School District students from 107 campuses. A total of 216,500 fourth grade students from 5,550 schools and 215,700 eighth grade students from 5,010 schools participated in the nationwide administration of NAEP in 2022.
Continue readingCYCLE Houston rewards students’ literacy achievements with bikes
Thousands of HISD second-graders from across the district will be awarded bicycles for achieving their reading goals for the semester.
Through the CYCLE (Changing Young Children’s Lives through Education) bike program, students worked with teachers to create personalized literacy goals to help boost their reading skills. Each student signed a contract that once those goals were achieved, they would be awarded a brand-new bicycle and helmet.
According to CYCLE, the program not only helps students achieve grade-level reading, it teaches them that hard work equals reward. Students at Eliot Elementary School were so excited about the prospect of earning a bicycle, they came to school early, stayed late, and tracked their own reading progress for months. Continue reading
Summer reading camps keep students from falling behind
HISD’s Literacy by 3 initiative is getting aid from other Houston sources.
The Barbara Bush Houston Literacy Foundation has allied with the Houston Area Urban League to create several summer reading camps at various affordable housing communities in Houston, several of which serve HISD students.
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At those camps, volunteers read with children, discuss the books, and then guide the children in answering questions and writing out reflections. Each child takes home a packet of books to add to their personal libraries. Many of these children come from homes that do not have a surplus of reading material. Continue reading
HISD extends its partnership with myON reading website
In support of its Literacy By 3 movement and Read Houston Read initiative, HISD has elected to extend its partnership with myON, a reading website that gives students access to thousands of titles for free.
HISD first joined forces with the myON website’s parent company, Capstone Publishing, last year as a part of the district’s summer reading program. Thousands of students took advantage of this valuable resource, and now, even more children stand to benefit from the partnership, as the contract has been extended through the end of August 2015. Continue reading
Rodriguez ES and Student Assessment prove good neighbors also make good reading buddies
Betty Garcia from HISD’s Student Assessment Department reads aloud from “Nugget & Fang,” by Tammi Sauer, to Rodriguez ES students.
On the last two days of every work week, between the hours of 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., you’ll find members of HISD’s Student Assessment Department making their way across the busy intersection of Chimney Rock and Glenmont.
Why are they braving the lunch hour traffic? To get to Rodriguez Elementary School, on the other side of the street.
Last month, Rodriguez Principal Elena Martinez-Buley launched a new Reading Buddy Partnership with Student Assessment in support of the district’s Literacy By 3 movement, and now, more than a dozen volunteers from that department visit the school twice a month to read to students during their lunchtime. Continue reading
Millionaire Club Spotlight: What Are You Reading This Summer?
HISD’s Millionaire Club is a literacy initiative designed to encourage students to read for pleasure during the summer months. Each week, we’ll catch up with one HISD librarian to find out what’s on his or her reading list. This week, we spoke with Jo Reed, the librarian at Scroggins Elementary School.
Books Between Kids promotes reading, peer-to-peer philanthropy
Books Between Kids founders Amy Barnes & Sandra Ahlhorn with students from Kashmere Gardens ES
More than 12,000 HISD students will be starting off their summer vacation right—with an armload of books to take home, enjoy, and keep—thanks to two book-loving ladies and the non-profit they created last year to support literacy.
“Building home libraries, one summer at a time,” is the slogan of Books Between Kids, which Sandra Ahlhorn and Amy Barnes cofounded in 2012, and that is precisely what the longtime friends (and parents of HISD students) intend to do.
“What really provoked me was an op-ed piece I read in the newspaper that children were living in homes with no books,” explained Barnes. “And ‘no’ means ‘none.’ We both grew up in book-loving homes, so that just didn’t seem possible. Then Sandra heard a talk given by (HISD Superintendent) Terry Grier about the summer slide, and we both thought, ‘You know, we can do something about this.’”
Club encourages students to read over summer break
Herrera ES students choose books to read this summer
Most Houston Independent School District students will be spending their summer vacation having fun and doing things to get ready for the upcoming school year, including reading a few good books.
Students in all grades are participating in the Millionaire Club, a summer reading program that the district developed five years ago.