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RIVERTON -- A Riverton elementary school seems to have found a formula to improve reading. A sixth grader there made such great strides, he's been chosen as one of KSL's "Read Today" spotlights.
KSL and other Deseret Media Companies have launched a campaign to boost reading in Utah. As part of "Read Today," we hold up success stories.
It's amazing. It's great to see him excited and happy and feel like he can actually learn from reading.
–Lori Clayson
Though the books he reads are sarcastic, the fact that Chandler Clayson is reading them shows great progress.
"I'm reading books that I couldn't read then, now," he says.
Chandler's mom has watched him go from a struggling to an enthusiastic student, and the change, she says, came as he jumped an equivalent of nine reading levels over a few months.
"It's amazing," says Lori Clayson. "It's great to see him excited and happy and feel like he can actually learn from reading."
Southland Elementary School takes part in the Ken Garff Road to Success program, where kids who meet their 20-minutes-a-day reading goals have a chance to win prize tickets and eventually new bikes.
"Oh, they are so excited," says Christine Christensen, a literacy facilitator at Southland Elementary. "They will ask me, ‘How many tickets do I have? Do I have enough tickets?'"
That's part of the motivation, but Chandler's sixth-grade teacher also gets credit for maintaining that enthusiasm.
"He's wanted to impress his teacher like, more than any other teacher he's had in the past," Lori says.
That teacher is Simon Raubenheimer. "I've seen his grades improve tremendously in all areas, language arts especially, or reading, but specifically his writing," he says.
For tips on how to help your child go from a struggling reader to a super reader, check out the links on the side of this page.
E-mail: dwimmer@ksl.com
