Tag Archives: reading

Texans safety teaches HISD students about healthy eating with new book

Houston Texans safety Jimmie Ward says three things helped him get to the NFL: education, sleep, and healthy eating. That’s what he told a room full of students at Askew Elementary School on Wednesday, March 6, as he presented his new children’s book, “Jimmie Ward’s Nutritional ABC’s For Active Kids”.

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Houston Texans Tackle Reading with story time with a football star, donating to home libraries

Law Elementary students welcomed surprise visitors on Friday, March 1, when representatives from the Houston Texans, including former Texans defensive tackle Earl Mitchell, came to participate in a reading of Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham to celebrate the eighth annual Tackle Reading Day.

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HISD students share their recommendations for National Book Month

October marks National Book Month, a celebration centered on the importance of reading, writing, and literature. National Book Foundation launched the initiative in 2003 to encourage reading and show appreciation to the writers who brought our favorite stories into the world.

At Pin Oak Middle School, librarian Brooke Corso does her best to make every day a celebration of books and reading. We sat down with Corso and some of Pin Oak’s voracious readers to ask them about their favorite books and how they think National Book Month should be celebrated.

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Gregory Lincoln Education Center receives $10,000 in library upgrades through community partner

HISD is helping turn young readers into leaders, thanks to a partnership with KPMG’s Family for Literacy (KFFL). The organization donated $10,000 to refresh the library inside the Gregory Lincoln Education Center, and Wednesday, Oct. 18, was the big unveiling.

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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.

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Nation’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.

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CYCLE 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

reading_computerIn 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