The Little Rock School District is prepared to fight the summer learning slide by sending all of its elementary pupils home this month with 7,000 books and a challenge to read as many of them as possible.
There's no need to stuff the backpacks. The state's largest district is making online fiction and nonfiction books available to the pupils, who need only to type their school-issued password into just about any kind of electronic device to find something of interest for them to read.
The online books -- which also feature artwork, quick access to word definitions and narration by actors -- are provided to the district by myOn, a division of Capstone Publishers, at a cost of up to $5,000 per school or $150,000 districtwide.
"We know every child needs the opportunity to read every day, and they need to feel successful with that reading," Sabrina Stout, the district's elementary literacy specialist, said Tuesday at a news conference at Baseline Elementary School about myOn and the summer program.
"Having enough books to do that for all of our students can be a challenge, but all of a sudden, we have thousands and thousands of books at our fingertips," Stout said.
For every 10 books a child reads over the summer, the child's name will be put into a national drawing for a computer tablet. The company will also provide electronic readers as prizes just for Little Rock district students in categories such as the most books read, most hours of reading and the most improvement in reading level.
"Every child here has a virtual backpack of 7,000 books that are at their disposal," said Haygood Poundstone, regional vice president of digital solutions at Capstone Publishers. "We want every child to take advantage of it. We want kids to read. We want kids to read the right books."
Ten books at the right reading level for a child is the equivalent of a summer school session, he said.
"It stops the summer slide," he said, referring to the loss of skills that can occur over the summer when students aren't in school.
Little Rock district pupils have been using the myOn books districtwide this school year and in pilot program schools in previous years, and they know how the system works.
The students have read almost 250,000 books since the beginning of the school year, Poundstone said. A total of 448,000 books have been opened. A total of 44,544 hours of reading have been accomplished this year by the more than 14,000 participating students.
Latonya Jackson, a fifth-grade teacher at Baseline, said her pupils read the online books in class. She also supplemented class study on the Civil War with a series of myOn books on the topic for her pupils to read.
"What I like best about myOn is that it is an 'anywhere program,'" Jackson said. "Students can log in from anywhere and from just about any digital device. MyOn gives students choices and meets the needs of today's 21st-century students."
Fifth-grader Sophia Lopez, 11, navigated the myOn site with ease, showing the different categories of books available and the 19 books she has already read this year.
"I enjoy myOn because it has books I want to read," said Sophia, who wants to be a doctor. "My favorites are about science and math."
Little Rock district pupils at 31 elementary schools, plus Dunbar and Horace Mann middle schools and Hall High School, are among 6 million students in all 50 states using the online library, Poundstone said.
About 70 percent of the reading material is nonfiction, mirroring the emphasis placed on nonfiction by the Common Core State Standards in literacy, which are the basis for curriculum and instruction in Arkansas' public schools.
Familiar titles are included in the collection, while many others can be added at an additional cost, said Barbara Williams, the district's director of instructional technology.
About 10 percent of the material is in Spanish, Williams said.
The first time children log on to myOn accounts, they fill out surveys about their areas of interest, and they complete reading assessments to determine their reading levels.
"We know what they like, and we know their reading level," Poundstone said.
The system creates a recommended list of books for each student that ranges from 100 points below the student's reading level to 50 points ahead.
The readers are periodically reassessed or quizzed to check for any changes in students' reading levels. Students also are asked to rate the books they read. The assessment and ratings are used to tweak the recommended list of books for students to better meet their reading levels and areas of interest.
"It gives you content that you like and want to be engaged with. It also gives you the appropriate content for the [reading] level," Poundstone said.
Metro on 06/03/2015