Ar'Terrance Hall

Kids at Ferguson Middle School are using the Young Saint Louis.com website in their summer reading classes.

Ar'Terrance Hall said he likes to read. But, the 15-year-old added, "I like to read when it's about something that's real. There's a lot of stuff that's real on the website."

He said the news stories about St. Louis-area kids "make reading a lot more interesting."

He is among 50 seventh and eighth graders who need to pass these special summer reading classes so they can move on in their schooling. Hall is planning to start at McCluer High School in the fall. He hopes to play football in high school and become a professional football player.

Hall said he also likes the crossword puzzles on the website. The puzzles include words from the stories in each month's edition.

Teacher Jennifer Weir got permission from the Ferguson Middle School administration to base her intense, four-week reading classes on the YSL.com website. She teaches five classes a day, using exercises based on the website.

Candice Evans

Fourteen-year-old Candice Evans said some of the class lessons require the students to write summary paragraphs about a website story. "Writing the summaries helps me think about the stories more," she said.

Evans expects to start at McCluer North High School in the fall.

Fourteen-year-old Ashley Green said the summary writing helps her understand the stories. "But, it also helps me with my writing skills," she said.

Ashley likes the idea of having a locally-produced website to use in her classes. "When I see a website like this, I know that people are trying to help. That motivates me to learn," she said.

She is planning to attend McCluer High School in the fall. She hopes to be a psychologist when she finishes her schooling. "I like to talk to people and help them," she said.

Ashley Green

Fourteen-year-old Denzel Bishop said he likes to read mostly adventure stories. But, he said he likes website stories because they are "about what kids can do around St. Louis."

He said having the stories based on local kids helps him with his reading. Then, having to write reports on the stories "helps me even more," he said.

Bishop is planning on attending ninth grade at Gateway Middle School this fall. He hopes to become an outfielder on a professional baseball team. He said, "I have a good arm but I need to work on it more."

Asked about his hitting, he said, "I can hit most of the time."

Denzel Bishop

Teacher Weir focused each of her first classes on a single story on the website. She asked the students to follow a lesson plan similar to the one which comes with each website story. That has the students do things before they read, while they read and then after they read.

The written summaries are based on discussion questions at the end of each lesson plan.

After the first week, Weir let the kids branch out a bit. She gave them a work sheet titled "Young Saint Louis.com Scavenger Hunt."

This asked a series of 10 questions. The students were supposed to work on their own to surf the website and find the answers. Questions ranged from finding a specific story in a past edition to picking their three favorite jokes in the Fun and Games section.

Candice Evans said she liked the chance to check out the website on her own. "I like to explore a lot. I also like the links to other websites," she said.

She said her work on the website has been helped because she's known how to type since she was in fourth grade. She hopes for a career as "a person who deals with computers."

Weir said school principal Tracy Rohlfing is "very supportive" of her plan to use the website to teach reading classes. One of the things the principal did was buy several copies of the Garfield Dictionary for use in the classes.

In May, 2000, Young Saint Louis.com featured a book review on the new Garfield Dictionary. The dictionary was written especially for kids and features the cartoon character, Garfield the Cat.

Weir said she won't just stress how to find words in the dictionary. She also will show how the dictionary helps kids learn how to pronounce words. She said many students like to read but don't always understand what they have read.

The website lesson plans help kids identify difficult words. That way, they can look up the meanings of those words before they start to read the whole article.

Weir plans to conduct "in-service" training this fall for other teachers in the school to show them how to use the website in their classes.