A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Checklist: If Your School Needs to Improve, What Actions are Needed?

Yes No	Encourage parents to read with their children starting in the earliest years (e.g., encouraging them to read with children 30 minutes a day, including the summer, and to get a library card and use it).
Yes No	Rally the whole community around helping children read well by the end of 3rd grade/start of 4th grade by answering the America Reads Challenge Build on that early reading foundation in the later grades and help students who have fallen behind.
Yes No	Provide teachers with ongoing and sustained professional development to improve the teaching of reading.
Yes No	Compare your reading program against schools demonstrating the best performance. Are you participating in the summer reading program, READ*WRITE*NOW!--a summer component of the America Reads Challenge?
Yes No	Take advantage of the availability of college work-study students, college students doing community service, and AmeriCorps partnerships to provide extra tutoring in reading.
Yes No	Working with teachers, principals, librarians, community and youth groups, offer after school, weekend, or summer tutoring programs to help students who need extra assistance.
Yes No	Offer parent education courses such as Parents as Teachers, HIPPY, and family literacy programs that help parents of young children develop language and preliteracy skills in their children.
Yes No	Participate in the National Reading Test at grade 4, to be given in 1999. This will let students, teachers, parents, and the principal know their students' reading level, so extra help can be given.
Yes No	Use the arts and your community's cultural resources to improve early childhood preliteracy skills and reading.

[ED Resources]