Our plan was threefold…to take advantage of the public library, the Internet, and reading incentives.  How did we utilize a free, public resource, the Bartholomew County Public Library located adjacent to our new building?  Sets of books on tape and CDs of novels used in Language Arts classes were compiled and taken to the public library.  Sixth and seventh grade students and their families were notified through a newsletter about the availability and location of the books.  The library kindly handled the check out of our books, and the students gained a head start on the readings of the upcoming school year. 

       Was this a successful project?  We won’t know how it impacts any standardized test results for several months, but I received an e-mail this summer from one of the anxious sixth graders.  He was on vacation and had taken several of the books and CDs along.  He claimed he was enjoying reading for once, going at his own pace getting ready for middle school, and knowing the stress of Language Arts would be greatly diminished.

      The second area to address was how to work on content area vocabulary over the summer.  A wonderful foreign language teacher suggested the web site QUIA.  This is a low cost, interactive site that students could access over the summer to fnd a word list and multiple activities to accompany each list.  Each content area generated a list of twenty words used frequently at the beginning of the year.  After the words and their definitions were entered, the program did the rest.  Student hits recorded online indicate the site was frequently visited.  This site will be maintained throughout the school year so students can flex their independence and work at home or at school when there is extra time.