Reading Counts is an independent reading accountability program that measures and tracks a student’s reading progress. Grade 2nd-6th students demonstrate their understanding of a book by completing a short comprehension quiz on the computer. The types of questions on a Reading Counts quiz include; recall and knowledge, author study, summarizing, cause and effect, sequencing, vocabulary, identifying information within the text, main idea and detail. Reading Counts allows a student to retake the quiz if they score below a 70% and choose to reread the book. Our school has access to every Reading Counts quiz available. If your child reads a book at home that is not available in our library, they may search the available quizzes. If they find there is a quiz for the book, they can take the quiz at school. Students do not move up in Lexile level by taking Reading Counts quizzes; instead, a student’s Lexile range is adjusted as the classroom teacher assesses each student’s reading growth and students take the SRI test. Ultimately, students should be applying the reading strategies they have learned in the classroom to their independent reading. The true test of comprehension lies in their ability to apply these skills to each book they read. Students take the Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI) test to determine their Lexile range. The SRI test is an online test that involves reading a series of short passages taken from fiction and nonfiction books and articles. After each passage, the student is asked to complete a fill-in-the-blank sentence. Students will take this test four times per year to monitor progress. A student’s score on the SRI test will determine their Lexile range. Once they know their Lexile range, students select books based on color-coded stickers found at the base of the spine of our Library and classroom books. Teachers encourage students to read at their Lexile range across many genres of fiction and non-fiction books. In addition to checking out Lexiled books, students are encouraged to check out “choice” books that do not have a Lexile level.