Recently 15 minutes of reading in elective classes were added to student’s daily routine as a way to increase the lexile levels and to improve scores.
Sophomore Jennifer Torres had mixed feelings on the 15 minutes of reading with whether or not it could really help her.
“I saw no point in reading more, to read in a class that’s not English you know,” Torres said. “I don’t think the 15 extra minutes takes away from class, we still have time to go over the subject in class. This reading is good for us, in a positive light, I’m not bugged by it,”
Principal Daniel Girard’s plan with the 15 minutes of reading is to have kids get more practice reading, many students are above level for reading but also below level.
“The more you read, the better you get, there’s still an opportunity to increase their lexile level,” Girard said.
Students have a positive mindset that they will achieve the lexile scores they need so the required reading time will stop.
“Eventually, I think they will take the reading away in electives because STAAR will be over and they will hopefully see an improvement on our scores and lexile scores by then,” Esli Arrieta said.
“I honestly think the extra reading helps us more, it helps the students improve our lexile scores which are really low this year for many students,” Arrieta said. “I think some students could care less, unless it really does affect them or sometimes it depends what class this extra reading is being done in, my dance class with this reading definitely gets time taken away.”
Arrieta does see the positives that come from the mandatory reading time.
“In a positive aspect, I get to read more from my book for Reading Counts and it helps finish my book before it is due,” Arrieta said. “We got the 15 minutes of reading because our scores are terrible, our lexile scores are so low, hopefully this helps others with their reading counts quizzes.”
“I personally don’t want it to go away because it has helped me catch up on my reading,” Arrieta said.
Sophomore Jonathon Hardy thought these extra minutes of reading were useless for the students seeing as how students are already doing daily reading in English classes.
“It’s unnecessary, we have enough reading in classes, we should be doing the reading in the majority of our English classes,” Hardy said.
Electives are chosen by the student unlike core classes that the students are required to take throughout high school.
“Generally, electives aren’t getting much taken away from them because it is an elective,” Hardy said.
Students agreed that the 15 minutes of reading weren’t awful but they shouldn’t be done in electives.
“The 15 minutes of reading is a negative aspect to us because it takes time away from class, electives were already fine before this 15 minutes of reading was involved,” Hardy said.
Electives like art, PE, and dance have all been asked to use the first fifteen minutes of every class period to take time and read.
“Because a majority of reading is done on a daily basis in English class to get their reading done,” Hardy said.
Students read their Reading Counts book at the beginning of English class for 15 minutes then reflect on what they read and write it down on their reading log.
“I believe, it might help prepare us accomplish and do better on STAAR but we already have it for English, so it is unnecessary extra reading,” Hardy said.
Many students believe that the extra reading time was put on them to increase their reading level to make better scores on the STAAR.
“I think the whole concept of the extra reading between students is biased, and I think it is an insult to my intelligence,” Hardy said.
