News Release

Promoting Literacy: Stephens Elementary Students Line Up to Receive Dog Tags

November 30, 2012

Students at Stephens Elementary have one thing on their minds this holiday season! Books! As part of an effort to get the kids to read more, administrators at the elementary school are giving students the opportunity to earn dog tags based on the number of points they earn for passing accelerated reading tests. The dog tags are awarded at the school’s Quarterly Awards Ceremony at the end of each nine week grading period. The ultimate goal is to beat last year’s record for the total number of books read and continue to increase the passing rate on accelerated reading tests. 

At the end of the first nine weeks, 279 students took 7,896 assigned reading tests with a passing rate of 88 percent. The dog tags are given out in increments of 5 points all the way up to 300 points. For example, one dog tag may read ‘5 points’ while another dog tag may read ‘175 points.’

During the 2011-2012 school year students read a total of 37,658 books and had an 88 percent passing rate on accelerated reading tests.