START TO FINISH ONLINE LIBRARY: Info for Special Ed ALTs at Secondary Campuses 12/03/2012

To: Secondary ALTs cc: Secondary Administrators

ESS has purchased a one year subscription to the Start-to-Finish Online Library for all secondary campuses. Special Ed ALTs have been designated as the site administrators for this program. As the site administrator, you will manage the access rights to this online program for your campus and provide access to the online series to your teachers. Once a teacher has been given access, the teacher can give their students access, personalize reading settings for the student, and set up groups of students. You should receive an email from donjohnston.com letting you know you have been added as a site administrator, and giving you the website url so that you can log in and begin setting up your staff. Staff and student use is unlimited in this online series.

The Start-to-Finish Library offers struggling secondary readers a wide-selection of age-appropriate narrative chapter books written at two readability levels (Gold for 2nd-3rd Grade level, Blue for 4th-5th grade level) When reading selections from the Start-to-Finish series, students practice reading fluently and with comprehension using multiple text and electronic supports, while accessing the curriculum’s required topics, genres and literature.

While our traditional Start-to-Finish library continues to be housed at PRC and available for checkout to teachers, the new online series allows teachers and students to access the books online from their own computers or mobile devices. Teachers can personalize settings to enhance the student's reading and they can review data that is automatically collected when the student reads books and answers quiz questions. This allows the teacher to monitor the student's reading volume and level of success as he reads.

The online series is very easy to begin using. I am listing support resources below to help you get started. We plan to review the information in an upcoming meeting and answer your questions, but we know you will be excited about this resource and want to begin utilizing it now.

If you would like a tutorial to assist you in the management/setup portion of your campus site, you'll find it here, along with some other helpful product resources: http://www.donjohnston.com/resources/stfonline_index.html

If you are not at all familiar with the Start-to-Finish series, you may want to start here for some background information including a 5 minute video overview and a video demo before learning about the new online version. http://www.donjohnston.com/products/start_to_finish/library/index.html

If you are already familiar with the Start-to-Finish series, then you can start here to learn about new features in the online series. http://www.donjohnston.com/products/stfonline/index.html

If you would like to register for one of the following webinars sponsored by Don Johnston, Inc., go to this link. http://www.donjohnston.com/webinars/

1. Start-to-Finish Reading: Bringing Common Core Skills to Special Education (space is limited.) December 12th (11-12 p.m.CST) or December 19th (1-2 p.m. CST)

2. Start-to-Finish Online Accessible Library- Tuesday, December 18, 2012 10-10:30 CST)

If you need additional assistance, contact David Hays, Betsy Ullrich, Debbie Hebert or Alisa McCarty.