Tip your hat to Wim C. for he is our January Star of the Month. Wim is a fifth grade student in Ms. Brown's class at Camperdown Academy in Greenville, SC. Wim's teacher nominated him for his love of reading even though it has never come easily to Wim. Ms. Brown shared the following about Wim's great success in Read Naturally Live.

Right away I could see that Wim had the heart of a reader. Every week he would search the library in hopes of finding a book that not only interested him but that he could read independently. Although he frequently left discouraged, he continued to come and ask about books. In August, as a fifth grader, Wim began participating in Camperdown Academy's fluency lab. He was selected to be a part of the class based on his Below Basic Range score of 69 wcpm on the fall assessment of Benchmark Assessor. He initially began Read Naturally Live at the 4.0 level with his cold reads at 68 wcpm. Now at level 4.5, his cold reads average 110 wcpm with his hot reads at 142 wcpm. Next week he will begin working at level 5.0. Not only is his tremendous progress evident on Read Naturally Live, the winter administration of Benchmark Assessor validated his progress. Wim's winter score of 119 wcpm placed him in the Within Basic Range and revealed that he made an average weekly word increase of 2.4. Wim has internalized that even though he is dyslexic that reading is like most anything, the more you practice, the better you get. He looks forward to his daily Read Naturally Live work because he loves the amazing things he learns while reading the nonfiction passages. He also looks forward to seeing and hearing the progress he makes from his cold read to his hot read. Now when he goes to the library, he checks out the books he always wanted to and has the confidence and skill to read them. Wim is a Star Student not only because of his tremendous growth and progress but because he persisted so that he could reach his goal. He acknowledged that it was hard for him, he invested the time and energy to practice and keep at it, and every day he took steps toward achieving his goal of being a better reader. He is an inspiring example to his dyslexic peers that reading fluently is an attainable and worthy goal.

The Read Naturally Star Student of the Month program is designed to celebrate students who work hard to improve their reading skills using Read Naturally's intervention programs. Each month, we select one student to feature in our newsletter. The selected student wins a $50 Barnes & Noble gift card, and the school or teacher who nominated the student receives a $200 gift certificate for Read Naturally materials.