What’s Right With Our Schools: Michigan Avenue Elementary

CLEVELAND, TN (WDEF) – Getting children interested in reading at an early age is a key lifelong learning.

The Accelerated Reading Program at Michigan Avenue Elementary in Cleveland accomplishes that by bringing storybook characters to life.

Cynthia Duggan is the Librarian at Michigan Avenue.

She explains, “We have a program here called Accelerated Reader. All of the Bradley County schools have it, but we do it a little bit differently, because we celebrate Point Clubs, which students have to read to earn points, and they end up in Point Club. So every Point Club 25, 50, 100 and on up. We have characters, and this year it’s been is story book characters. So, each club has a storybook character. They video every week and they announce new members of the point club.”

Kate Bosch is the Special Education teacher. She is also kind of a character herself, in the best possible way.

Kate says, “So the kids are really enjoying it. I grew up reading Junie B Jones, and I know a lot of people who have, and it was fun to kind of bring her to life. Of course, my family thinks that it’s just me as a little kid coming back to life. I teach kindergarten through the fifth grade. And sometimes preschool as well. What I do is an inclusion setting. So I go into the classroom and assist students in Reading and Math, pretty much all students, not just students with special needs. So it is really cool.”

Cynthia concludes, ” Basically, I want them to understand that reading is important, and Accelerated Reader is just a tool that we use to help them practice reading. We encourage, and they get rewarded for it. It’s really, I tell them that I am bribing them into reading. Which I really am bribing them to read,but they are becoming better readers because of it.