School board discusses transfer policy

BY LYNN ATKINS Staff Writer lynna@nwanews.com

For years it’s been easy for students to transfer out of the Rogers School District, but more difficult to transfer in. - Wednesday, May 14, 2008

SCHOOL NOTES

JBU recognizes students The following students have been named to John Brown University’s president’s and dean’s lists of distinguished students from the advance degree completion program. The following students are members of the Northwest Arkansas Advance Program cohort group number 13 working towards a bachelor’s degree in business information services. President’s List: Michelle Williams, Rogers. Dean’s List: Johnathan Legg and Irene Sanchez-Juarez, Rogers. The following students are members of the Northwest Arkansas Advance Program cohort group number 59 working towards a bachelor’s degree in organizational management. Dean’s List: Terry Birdcreek and Coty Jones, Rogers. - Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Spotlight on Education : Understanding the five areas of reading instruction

YVONNE VOSS

“Put Reading First — The Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read” is a guide for parents and teachers based upon a report in 2000 by the National Reading Panel. The panel reviewed more than 100,000 studies and wrote this guide of what they discovered about how to successfully teach children to read. The guide is broken down into five areas of reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and text comprehension. Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify and manipulate individual sounds — phonemes — in spoken words. It is important because it improves children’s word reading and reading comprehension and helps children learn to spell. Phonemic awareness can be developed through a number of activities, including asking children to identify phonemes, categorize phonemes, blend phonemes from words, segment words into phonemes, delete or add phonemes to form new words, and substitute phonemes to make new words. Phonemic awareness instruction is most effective when ch - Wednesday, May 14, 2008