This September has been a busy month! It’s always a pleasure to reconnect with our "old" Panther Cubs and to get to know our "new" ones. I was impressed by the number of students who participated in the Summer Reading Program. Favorite books are "up" on the bulletin board by the gym.
   We spent the first week of school introducing and discussing our three tier behavior program with all students. We agreed that the basic expectation is for everyone to respect themselves, others and school property, to try their best every day, and to make intelligent choices—and that everyone should be able to stay in the "green zone" while in the library!
   The next week was spent elaborating on taking care of school property, especially our library books. We decided to keep our books clean -- washing our hands before reading and not eating or drinking while reading; dry—away from mud puddles, rainstorms, and bathrooms; and safe—away from babies and furry creatures who live in our house. We also agreed not to lend our books to anyone or to take them anywhere except home and back to school. We would appreciate your help as well; please let your children know if they are moving out of the Williams’ school boundaries so they can return the books checked out of our library.
   We were now ready to get down to business, reading! Third, fourth and fifth graders took the SRI, the reading test that determines the best Lexile level for our independent reading program, Reading Counts! (RC!).Students are able to read books that fall within a three hundred Lexile range, two hundred below to one hundred above—allowing them to read more difficult books that interest them. Reading Counts! provides three ten question quizzes for each book so students have the opportunity to take any quiz they do not pass three times. Once the quiz is successfully passed with seven correct answers, the zeros are removed from the student’s record. Our Panther Cubs are off to a great start! Second graders will participate in the program in mid October.
   Remember, we will be open the first and third Thursday of every month from 5:00-7:00pm for book check-out. Please stop by with your children and pick up some extra books. Students may check-out two books in addition to the two they may check-out at school for a total of four books. The books may be kept for two weeks and will be due the next library night. This is a great time to earn RC points!
   We’d like to thank you for your help in sharing the joy of reading and books with your children and for supporting us in our efforts to help your students be responsible for all Williams’ library books. Please visit our Fall Book Fair on Wednesday, October,14^th from 5:00 until 8:30. Books make great holiday gifts!