Junior High Media Center

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The Junior High has a beautiful library/media center on the Skyway Campus that the students and staff share with the High School. Spending time in the media center is a part of the English curriculum; the students come to media center every two weeks with their English class. They spend some of their time choosing books they would like to read that reflect a specific genre, so that the students are exposed to all different types of writing. The students also learn about the library through a series of classes on various aspects, such as the Dewey Decimal system, Internet research and the use of the computer card catalog.

There is an extensive choice of Christian fiction for those students that are avid readers as well as to help the rest of our students choose good books with content that is appropriate for their age and maturity. Many of the non-fiction books are specifically selected, with the curriculum that the students will be studying and researching.

The students also have access to the media center computer lab. They may practice their typing, type their papers, or do research before school, after school, during break, and lunch. The computers are networked to the Internet and are available to the students for research that relates to school projects.

Resources

The media center also provides various technology resources that the students can use for their various school projects. Among the many links to other resources the following can be found as links within our web page:

• Gale Database Resources: Includes 31 different databases for students to use for reliable data for projects and various research papers. Some of these databases contain information for: history, literature, opposing viewpoints, health, biographies,magazine and newspaper articles and reference books. There is also a link to all of the books that Valley has purchased as E-books.
• Issues and Controversies: Includes a database of varied perspectives on many issues.
• Kurzweil Software: This program helps students overcome reading challenges.
• Poetry for Everyone: Users can search 4,000 poems by author, title or subject.

Links to resources

Encyclopedia Americana and The New Book of Popular Science
San Jose Public Library
Web Sites for Research
Gale Database Resources
Poetry for Everyone

Web Sites with links relating to various school disciplines.

Kurzweil Reading Software

The media center in cooperation with the Discovery Center and the faculty also provides a tool for students with reading challenges. The Kurzweil 3000 is a software reading program that converts printed text into speech. The program enhances a studentís reading rate as well as comprehension, and favorably increases the amount of time a student spends reading and studying. The program helps reading become more focused and enjoyable, because reading is less stressful and less tiring.

The media center staff and a group of volunteer parents have scanned and edited almost all of the Junior High textbooks, as well as the books required for summer reading. We continue to add new books and library books that the students can also use. This allows the student to have the material from the book read to them from the computer.

For those students that have difficulty taking tests, these can also be scanned, so that the student can take a test using this program as a tool. The student sees the printed word on the screen and at the same time hears the words spoken audibly from the computer.

Media Center Hours and Staff

The media center is open for Junior High students from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm Monday through Thursday, and 8:00 am to 3:30 pm on Friday. On occasion the media center closes for teacher and staff use. Our media center is staffed by Mrs. Sharon Kilpatrick, Mrs. Rebecca Gaul, and Mrs. Aimee Van Meter. One of the goals of the staff is to make sure that each student that needs personalized assistance receives it, so that they can be successful in the assignment they are working on.