The Leisure Reading program is a strong component in the overall development of Sierra High School students’ literacy skills. The role of reading everyday is a major factor in students building overall academic success and the opportunity to build literacy skills daily, in an non evaluative manner, increases students skills across the curriculum. We've made some changes to the time and place we read in order to capture more students. We now read 30 minutes, 3 times a week, as a break in between our morning core classes. We capture more students in the building at that time and have a little longer to transition in and out of our reading time. The purpose of this grant is to fund the purchase of novels students choose to read during our daily leisure reading. The main objectives that develop from the leisure reading program include students building stamina, increasing their range and use of reading strategies and acquiring an identity as a reader. These objectives directly correlate with the students increasing literacy successes in our content area classrooms. When students can choose the novels they want to read, have time to read independently with no additional requirements, and share their reading experiences with their peers, their reading successes increase. These successes in turn allow students to have more successes as they interact with content area texts as well.
Sierra High School is a unique blend of diverse learners. The school serves students with special needs, english language learners, students from low socio economic backgrounds and students with difficult social emotional situations. With the expectation that the Leisure Reading program is implemented school wide, all students benefit from their increasing literacy skills as they read a novel of their own choice for 30 minutes. In addition to building stronger literacy skills in our school, we see this leisure reading program as having an impact in our communities as well. As students take home novels they have chosen to read, they share them with their families and communities. We believe these interactions tie strongly to the district's vision of being an All American City and participating in the campaign for grade level reading. These leisure reading novels are consumable by nature, seeing that they have so many interactions, but the impact they provide to our overall school community is long lasting.
Upon enrolling in Sierra High School, students often report they have not successfully completed a novel in five or six years, or in some occasions, ever. A crucial component to this lack of success is often that students don't find books that interest them. The staff works diligently to find novels that interest our student body and sometimes that requires reading off the district's traditional canon of required novels. Once a student finds a book they like, they report finishing it independently within the first month or two of attending Sierra High School. Students who have attended Sierra High School for more than a year or two often report that they finish between 4-5 novels a year independently. As we see our school reading community grow, with students taking a leadership role in talking about what books they like, asking for what books they want to read and sharing their reading experiences, we see our students develop and grow as readers. This in turn supports the learning in our content area classrooms as students' dispositions towards reading increases positively.
Our school wide leisure reading program is built on different tenets, this extended self choice reading time is an important foundation. Students are encouraged to choose books they wish to read and there are no additional assessments or requirements for the task. Student choice is a major part of the success of the program and eventually leads to students viewing themselves as readers.
This grant supports all students in all grade and subject levels of Sierra High School as the expectation is that all students read across the school for 30 minutes 3 times a week. Students read in their biology and math classes in addition to their English classes.
This budget request reflects the usage of our local bookstores in Truckee and Reno, as well as on line distributors such as Amazon Books and Books A Million and low cost publishers such as Dover Thrift Editions as additional vendors to supplement the purchasing our student choice leisure reading novels. These vendors all contribute to lower shipping costs.
Some Title I and Measure A funding may be used to supplement these novels, but not enough funding to implement schoolwide program