Robeson County Reading Council

I just wanted to summarize what happened at our first meeting. Overall, it was a terrific meeting with lots of people there and quite a few new people. Let's continue to spread the word about the Reading Council. We are going to do so much this year, it'll be great to have lots of us to get it all accomplished!

We opened with some information wrapped up from last year and to introduce this year. Discussed were the service project with the hospital as well as introducing new technology that will help members keep informed of what's happening with RCRC. We'll also be adding a monthly book talk. In February, our members will get a chance to show their ideas and skills as we have Member Presentation Night.

We then had a presentation by Wanda Broome from Scholastic Books. She presented a terrific presentation about reading levels. Discussed were topics such as:

• a terrific group activity with shapes vs. personalities
• some sobering statistics about socio-economic status vs. reading ability
• a web site that shows High School dropout statistics
• discussion about reasons students will drop out
• the relationship between reading achievement and vocabulary
• discussion of the impact technology has on reading
• lexiles and how they are used in reading
• discuss levels of various reading materials
• finished with an activity where members evaluated several books for reading level

As you can see, we had a busy meeting with lots of information given. Our next meeting is October 20, 6:30 pm at the Public Library Annex. We hope to see you there!