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Teachers do homework on CIM By Vicki Guarino PHOENIX � Scores of teachers spent their last days of summer vacation back in school, learning techniques for getting students to pass state academic standards. The teachers filled classrooms at Phoenix High School to take suggestions and advice from fellow teachers and education specialists. The session, Helping Students Reach Benchmarks Conference, was held Thursday and Friday. It was organized by the Jackson Education Service District. A handful of Crater High School teachers, who spent two days in a reading seminar with a Eugene-area education specialist praised the session for so closely matching their classroom needs. Not only will the session help them help students reach academic benchmarks, they said, but it will help students enrich their lives. More important than getting students to reach state reading standards, these teachers agreed, is to get them to enjoy reading. "This will help them read for the rest of their lives," said Crater English teacher Deirdre Keating . Reading specialist Jill Schwimmer stressed the importance of getting students to take pleasure in reading, even as passing benchmark exams becomes more important. She encouraged teachers to engage students in conversation about their reading assignments, not fire off a bunch of questions. "You don�t want him to get the idea that the point of reading is getting tested," Schwimmer said. Her presentation spanned lessons for beginning readers in primary grades, to high school age students needing strong comprehension skills to pass the state tests for the CIM, Certificate of Initial Mastery. Although the CIM is intended to set a standard in Oregon for academic accomplishment in high school, most student have been unable to pass the tests to receive a certificate. Sessions like the ESD conference are intended to get students more help for the tests. Schwimmer�s audience, like other in the workshop, drew teachers from all grade levels, as well as aides and prospective teachers enrolled in education at Southern Oregon University. Teacher�s aide Claudia Fowler, who assists in the special education program in the Prospect School District, said she drew valuable lessons from the conference. "It will be very beneficial for Prospect," she said. SOU student Jennifer Stockfleth said the conference focus on academics was somewhat frustrating because it was hard to link lectures to her interest. Stockfleth wants to be a middle school music teacher. But she said she could see ways to link music to academics. The conference covered a variety of subjects, with lessons to match state tests. Teachers shared favorite books, describe successful classroom activities and critiqued problems with particular students. Over the two days of the conference, teachers signed up for elementary science and writing, social sciences in the middle grades, and ways to teach math to students from other cultures. Numbers are the same in many languages, but ways of doing mathematical functions differ dramatically, said ESD migrant education staff member Rebecca Holt. "They don�t understand our math and we don�t understand theirs," Holt said. She cautioned teachers against making assumptions about the math abilities of students in English as second language programs, particularly in light of demands of the state math tests. "It�s very difficult for those kids," Holt said. Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA