Literacy Corner 2024-2025

Graphic novels have been sparking excitement in readers from Kindergarten through 5th grade for the last 10-15 years — and for good reason! These engaging, visually rich books are more than just fun; they help build strong reading skills like comprehension, vocabulary, and sequencing. For beginning readers, the combination of pictures and text makes stories easier to follow and understand. Older students enjoy the complex characters, creative formats, and the way graphic novels make even reluctant readers eager to turn the page. From silly adventures to heartfelt journeys, graphic novels offer something for everyone—and we're thrilled to see so many students diving in! Thanks to graphic novel authors like Raina Telgemeier (Smile, Guts), Dav Pilkey (Dog Man, Cat Kid Comic Club), and Aaron Blabey (The Bad Guys) there are more than a thousand new graphic novels for young readers published every year. Many favorites have been adapted into graphic novel format: Anne of Green Gables, The Boxcar Children, The Babysitters Club, Nancy Drew, Goosebumps, Warriors, I Survived…, Magic Tree House, and many more. Some other fun graphic novels for young readers include: Ballet Cat, Narwhal and Jelly, Owly, Kitten Construction Company, Bunbun & Bonbon, and Fox and Rabbit. According to our librarian, Ms. Charlene, graphic novels are the most requested and also the most checked out in the FHES library. If your child is curious about or already hooked on graphic novels, remind them to check out our graphic novel section in the FHES library.

Our public library also has an extensive graphic novel collection and is hosting a FREE Comic Book Day this Saturday, May 3rd from 10:00am-5:00 pm.

We recently wrapped up National Reading Month, celebrating the joy and importance of reading! We kicked off the month with Dress-Like-Your-Favorite-Book-Character Day, which inspired so many of our favorite characters roaming around campus for the day. Additionally, PTO put on the Scholastic Book fair, which earned more than $12,000. Nearly $6000 of the proceeds comes back to the school library and our staff in order to purchase even more books.

We also had a March Madness Book Bracket, similar to the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament. We started with 16 books - favorites recommended by Ms. Charlene, students, and teachers. Each week, FHES staff and students voted for their favorites to move on to the next round. Our final four were the Wings of Fire series, the I Survived… series, the Elephant & Piggie series, and the Wild Robot series. Our final two were I Survived… and Wild Robot and Wild Robot won by 32 votes! If you have seen the movie or read the first one, there are two other books in the series to enjoy. Thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate reading last month!

March is NEA (National Education Association) National Reading Month, a time to celebrate the joy and importance of reading! To kick off this special month, we invite all students to participate in Read Across America Week March 3rd - 7th. On Friday, March 7th, students are invited to dress up as their favorite book character.

This fun event encourages a love of reading and allows students to bring their favorite stories to life. Costumes should be school-appropriate, safe for the classroom, and inspired by characters from books (not TV shows or movies). We encourage creativity and using items from home—there’s no need to buy anything new!

Throughout March, we will be celebrating with special literacy activities to inspire a lifelong love of books. The FHES Scholastic Bookfair will take place in the FHES Library during the week of 3/10 - 3/14. See below for more information.

Thank you for supporting our efforts to make reading fun and meaningful for all students. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out. We look forward to seeing all the wonderful book characters come to life!

Reading is one of the most valuable skills a child can develop, and exposure to both fiction and nonfiction books plays a crucial role in their learning journey. Fiction fosters imagination, creativity, and empathy by allowing children to step into different worlds, experience new perspectives, and connect with characters. Stories help develop language skills, improve comprehension, and encourage a love for reading that can last a lifetime. Through fiction, children also learn important life lessons, problem-solving skills, and emotional intelligence, all while enjoying the magic of storytelling.

Nonfiction, on the other hand, builds knowledge and curiosity about the world. It helps children understand real-life concepts, from history and science to cultures and current events. Research shows that as adults, approximately 80% of the reading we do is nonfiction—whether it's emails, news articles, work documents, or instructional materials. By encouraging children to read nonfiction from an early age, we help them develop critical thinking skills, expand their vocabulary, and prepare them for real-world learning. A balance of both fiction and nonfiction ensures children grow into strong, adaptable readers. We encourage families to explore a mix of books at home and make reading an enjoyable daily habit! Happy Reading!

We are a few weeks away from completing the first half of this school year! Teachers are busy planning for various reading and writing activities and students are putting those literacy skills to work every day!

Throughout K-5 classrooms, students are using various forms of expository/informative, narrative, persuasive, and letter writing. Ask your child/children what genres of writing have been happening in their classroom.

In addition to all of our literacy learning experiences, this month our 1st-5th grade students will take the second round MAP (Measuring Academic Progress) Growth tests. These tests measure achievement and growth in both math and reading. Because they are taken in Fall, Winter, and Spring (with the exception of Kindergarten students who take them in late Fall/early Winter and Spring only), results can measure growth throughout the school year and from year to year. These computer tests are adaptive, meaning the questions get harder if the student is answering correctly and easier if they’re answering incorrectly. The results provide teachers with data to help inform instruction regardless of how far students are above or below grade level. In grades K-2, questions are read to students by the computer with an option to have the computer repeat as many times as necessary. At this time of year, these tests give teachers additional information about student progress in comparison to the Fall’s MAP scores.

High-frequency words are words that appear most often in printed text. FHES teachers refer to these words as: “snap words” (we want to know them in a snap), “trick words” (they can be tricky, and often don’t follow rules that can be sounded out), “sight words” (we want to know them by sight), “word wall words”, etc. Readers work hard to recognize these words with automaticity, not needing to “sound them out”. Reading research tells us that when these words are instantly recognized, our brains can apply effort to the other words of the text and the short term memory can focus on comprehension of what is going on in the story. There are varying lists for these high-frequency words (e.g. the Dolch List, the Fry List).

Click here to see a list of 109 Power Words! These words have a lot of “power” for beginning readers as they comprise 50% of the words found in children’s texts. The first 13 words represent power little words that make up 25% of the words in children’s texts. Ensuring that your reader knows all of these words can be very beneficial for their reading success!

This month, we are highlighting some of the amazing work our librarian, Ms. Charlene, is doing in the FHES library to support our growing readers! Using proceeds from last spring’s book fair and her own classroom budget, Ms. Charlene added 87 books to our collection this year. This includes books related to our Character Strong traits, more early Spanish readers, teacher and student requests, graphic novels, and more early reader nonfiction animals and science. Thanks to a generous donation from our PTO, we also added all 2024-2025 Sasquatch Book Award nominees and Washington Children’s Choice Picture Book Award nominees. The Sasquatch Book Award nominations include twelve novels for grades 4-6. Our 4th and 5th-grade students are encouraged to read at least two of the books and vote for their favorite in the spring. Last year, more than 7,000 4th and 5th graders of Washington state voted for the Sasquatch Award. The Washington’s Children’s Choice Picture Book (WCCPB) Award nominations include twenty picture books for grades K-3. Ms. Charlene is reading all nominated books to our Kindergarten - 3rd grade students and they will vote on their favorite in the spring. Last year, nearly 117,000 K-3 students in our state voted for the WCCPB Award. We look forward to joining students across the state in voting for our favorites again this year!

Thanks to so many great titles and more than 12,000 different books in our library, our K-5 students average checking out 962 books a week during our weekly library visits! In addition to checking out books, Ms. Charlene also has a give-a-book/take-a-book shelf. Students can bring books from home to trade for other used books. Thanks to Ms. Charlene for all that she does to support our FHES readers!

For our earliest readers in pre-K and Kindergarten, we encourage engagement through books/topics of interest to your reader and being read to/reading each day.

Some first and second graders will prefer to be read to, while others are ready and interested in reading on their own. There are benefits for either and we suggest that students read/are read to for at least 20 minutes each night.

As third graders continue to build their reading lives, readers can choose a “just right” book they love, find a good spot to read, and read the book as if it were GOLD. It is expected that students read for 20 minutes each weeknight and fill out a reading log; weekend reading is encouraged.

Fourth grade readers and their families are encouraged beyond time parameters to make an investment in the emotional and cognitive growth that happens when caregivers read to and with children. During these moments of reading together, a complexity of language develops as well as a love of literature and storytelling. Children also learn to treasure books and the adventures that await them as they become stronger and more independent in their reading journey.

Fifth grade readers continue to grow their reading independence by reading for a minimum of 20 minutes and completing a reading log to track their work.

The image of Scarborough’s Reading Rope (2001) provides a visual of all the language comprehension and word recognition skills that are woven into reading instruction. Let’s work together to ensure that all FHES students are maximizing opportunities to develop into skilled readers.

We love to hear from you!

Email: roslynbutcher@sjisd.org
Website: sjisd.wednet.edu
Location: 95 Grover Street, Friday Harbor, WA, USA
Phone: 360.378.5209

San Juan Island School District Commitment to Non-discrimination

San Juan Island School District does not discriminate in any programs or activities on the basis of sex, race, creed, religion, color, national origin, age, veteran or military status, sexual orientation, gender expression or identity, disability, or the use of a trained dog guide or service animal and provides equal access to the Boy Scouts and other designated youth groups.

The San Juan Island School District offers classes in many career and technical education program areas such as Culinary Arts, Career Prep, STEM, and Computer Science under its open admissions policy. For more information about CTE course offerings and admissions criteria, contact CTE Directors, Liz Varvaro, elizabethvarvaro@sjisd.org, PO Box 458, FH, WA, (360) 378-4133. Lack of English language proficiency will not be a barrier to admission and participation in career and technical education programs.

The following people have been designated to handle inquiries regarding the non-discrimination policies:

Faith Knight, Civil Rights Compliance Coordinator, Title IX Officer

PO Box 458, Friday Harbor, WA 98250

(360) 378-4133

faithknight@sjisd.org

Becky Bell, Special Services Director, 504 Officer, ADA Coordinator, Gender-Inclusive Schools Coordinator

PO Box 458, Friday Harbor, WA 98250

(360) 378-4133

beckybell@sjisd.org

Fred Woods, Superintendent, Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying (HIB) Coordinator

PO Box 458, Friday Harbor, WA 98250

(360) 378-7905

fredwoods@sjisd.org