"Where Learning is an Adventure!"

 

The Elizabeth Redwine Ramsey Media Center 

• Our hours for students are 8:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. 

• Library cards are issued to each student.  Books may be checked out for one week.

• Kindergarten is allowed to check out one book at a time and all other grades may check out two books per week.

• Overdue notices are sent home every two weeks. We do not have fines but lost or damaged books must be paid for.

BJ Gilzean, Media Specialist

JJ Taylor, Media Paraprofessional

Destiny

Destiny, our online catalog, can now be accessed from home. This will allow you to see what books we have available in our library at Cleveland Elementary. You can also see whether a book is Lexiled or has a Reading Counts quiz. Please refer to the link in the Reading Counts section of this media center web page if you want to check the Reading Counts status or Lexile level of a book not in Destiny.

Reading Counts

Scholastic Reading Counts (RC) is our new reading program that is replacing Accelerated Reader (AR). Scholastic Reading Counts is a Lexile based independent reading program that tracks students’ success on the books they read. This technology-based program creates a personalized and engaging learning environment that ensures independent reading accountability. Students will read a wide variety of books independently or as a part of a group. After reading, students will take a computerized quiz that will assess whether they understood the book. This new system will track students’ progress.

The purpose of the Reading Counts Program is to encourage children to practice reading. As with any activity, practice is needed for improvement. The program is to be used as a supplement to the teacher's classroom reading program. There are three basic steps the child needs to do for successful participation in the Reading Counts program.

1. The child chooses a book to read that is part of the Reading Counts program and is in the child's independent reading level.

• The child reads the book for comprehension (understanding of the story).

• It is recommended for lower reading level books that the child independently reads the story at least two times prior to taking a quiz.

• To aid in comprehension, the child needs to discuss the story either mentally or verbally. Knowing the name of the author is also important.

2. The child takes a computerized quiz of 10 comprehension questions, hoping to score a minimum of 7 out of 10 questions answered correctly.

• Each Reading Counts quiz will ask 10 questions randomly chosen from a pool of 30 questions. Two students sitting side by side taking a quiz on the very same book would take completely different quizzes. Students are told at the end of the quiz whether they passed the quiz or not.

• If a child gets less than 7 correct, they may retake the quiz up to two more times. The child is required to wait 24 hours before the quiz can be retaken

The link to the Reading Counts Search site is http://4g-software.com/rc/.

(Please note: A school password is required to access the site.)

The Lexile Framework

The Lexile Framework is a measuring system that is used to determine the reading demand of the text in terms of the semantic difficulty (vocabulary) and syntactic complexity (sentence length). All of the books we have on the Reading Counts program are assigned a Lexile Level.
Instead of saying that a book has a first grade or second grade reading level, (this is very subjective), we use this system to rate and rank our books. The Lexile scale ranges from 100 to 1700 Lexiles. It is possible to have a variation of up to 300 points in a particular grade level, and still be considered on grade level.
 

The students in grades 1 through 5 who have taken the SRI Reading test have been given a Lexile measure or number. The beginning number isn’t as important as watching to make sure the number improves over time. This score can also be used to alert parents and teachers to those students who may be having difficulty with reading comprehension skills.

Most First Graders will initially score a “BR,” instead of a number, which just means that they are Beginning Readers. They should read books up to about a 200 Lexile initially.

Students should choose books in a range of 100 points below to 50 points above their Lexile number. There are also other considerations to take into account, such as the length of the book. The student may be able to read a harder (higher Lexile) book that is short, but may become too frustrated with a harder one that is very long.

A student’s Lexile measure can be a very useful tool to expand reading capabilities. The Lexile level shows what level of book they are capable of reading successfully. Reading a book that is at the correct Lexile measure will challenge the student without frustrating them

If you would like to check the Lexile of a book you have at home you can go to http://Lexile.com/ or Georgia Standards Lexile Framework for Reading.

 Fayette County Reading Invitational

The Fayette County Reading Invitational is a voluntary event for avid readers in the fourth and fifth grades. Interested students will read the books for their grade level independent of the regular classroom. These students will form teams that will compete in the Spring.

Copies of these books will be available for checkout in the media center and RC quizzes will be available for most titles. These titles can also satisfy the 25-book reading campaign. Books for the Reading Invitational are also available at book stores and local libraries.

Closed-Circuit Television Broadcast

WCCB, or the Cleveland Crocodile news Broadcast, is produced by fifth grade students each morning. The students audition for the anchor positions and technical positions at the beginning of each school year.  These students gain insight into what goes into producing a quality show. Each student also learns responsibility and flexibility, among other life skills, from this experience.

               

Questions and Information

Should you have any questions or would like to volunteer to help out in the Media Center, please contact Barbara Gilzean, Media Specialist, at gilzean.barbara@fcboe.org.

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Cleveland website designed and created by Catherine Douthard, Instructional Technology Specialist.

Updated 10/13/2011