This month of celebrating reading promotes the value of reading and encourages daily reading. In order to encourage reading, here are some reading comprehension strategies that can be practiced with a child at home. To help students think about what they’ve read, you can do the following:

• Ask what they already know about the topic
• Relate what they read to personal experiences or other texts to deepen understanding
• Ask questions about the text to clarify what it means
• Help them draw conclusions based on information provided in the text and background knowledge
• Have them identify and retell the main points in their own words
• Ask if they created mental images of the characters, settings, and events described, or ask what the story looks like in their mind
• Look up definitions and synonyms of unfamiliar words
• Make predictions with them about what might happen next based on information read

To encourage the St. John’s students to read, the school is doing a reading challenge beginning February 1st and ending on March 20th. Their goal is for the K-8 student body of St. John’s to read 10 million words in this time. To give a comparison, students read over 8.5 million words between November and December. 

If this goal is met, some students may have the opportunity to throw a pie in a staff member’s face. In order for the words read to be counted, students must take an AR quiz on the book. To help reach this goal, encourage students to read at home and remind students to take quizzes on the books they have read.