Fifth grade teacher Claudia Gonzalez has been using Scholastic Reading Counts! with her students for seven years now and is excited to share her success story with us. Claudia loves how SRI and SRC! work together. Students take the SRI assessment at the beginning of the year and Claudia is able to match appropriate-level books to readers and set goals for improvement for the year. The greatest thing about the program, Claudia says, is that it is equally effective for both high and low-level readers, and most importantly, “SRC! has helped some of my weak readers feel happy that they can read.”

P.S. 345 is a school with a wide disparity between reading levels in the fifth grade. Some students in bilingual classes have entered the fifth grade not reading at all. Claudia reports that by the middle of the year, all are reading at least at a first grade level thanks to Reading Counts! SRC!'s offering of Spanish-language quizzes has helped students transition to English, as they love taking tests both in English and in Spanish to see how they do in each language.v

Claudia shares uplifting stories of several students in particular who have greatly benefited from the program. One student who was new to the United States needed help with both reading the books and taking the tests on the computer. She became so happy and motivated upon seeing the screen when she passed a test that she wanted to log onto the computer at every chance. Claudia was able to adjust the program to her reading level, and within three months the student was reading books and taking quizzes on her own.

Another year Claudia had a group of students who were thirteen years old in the fifth grade and were two years behind in reading level. Because of their age, these students needed special motivation. Claudia relates that SRC! helped the students realize the importance of independent reading, and she was able to reward them with ribbons and by displaying their names on a board in the hallway.

Claudia rewards the students in other ways as well. She keeps a smart board in the classroom that charts the class's progress. She also has a board displaying how many books each child has completed. The student who has read the most books by the end of the year will receive a special prize on Graduation Day.

Claudia also loves SRC!'s other functions, like the opportunity for teachers to write their own quizzes. Claudia and her class were able to write their own quiz for a book together. Claudia remembers, “They had fun making up the test questions and it helped reinforce their questioning skills.” The reports that SRC! generates for parents also get a great response, as parents are able to follow their children's progress and help encourage them at home.

Claudia says, “Thank you for this great program which has helped hundreds of students become better readers!”