Frances Dombrowski

Working with a team of educators including Kathy Darby, Sue Dalton, Diane Hardy and Jessica Galla, Dombrowski's "Students Taking Accelerated Reading Steps (STARS)" project enables young readers to grow in skill and fluency while developing a love of reading with texts that fit their interests. The STARS project provides enrichment texts that are specifically available to be sent home with first grade students. The books encompass a wide range of topics that are of interest to six- and seven-year-old children, including weather, the solar system and space, dinosaurs, animals and insects, cars and trucks, and sports. The main goal of the project is to improve each student's reading level, develop effective reading strategies and match individual interests with books the children are eager to read.