National Honor Society

Pine Tree Academy’s chapter of the National Honor Society (NHS) has chosen a service project for the 2016-17 school year.  NHS members are creating learning center projects centered around literacy to send to our seven Adventist elementary schools in Micronesia.   

Our students are coloring, laminating and trimming attractive manipulatives, or hand-held learning games, for each of the five short vowel sounds as well as the long vowel sounds.  Through these colorful sets, students in our Micronesian Adventist schools will have a fun way to apply what they are learning about phonics. In these pictures you will see NHS members Lauren Krueger, Katie Steeves and Olivia Oliveira and friends hard at work.

In total seventy different sets will be sent out.  This may seem like a modest goal, however these devices can help emerging readers achieve great gains in fluency.  It must be said that the majority of students in the far Pacific do not speak English at home, and so are considered English-language learners (ELL) by their schools. ELL students arrive at reading fluency more slowly than those from homes where English is spoken.

Sophomores through seniors are welcome to apply to the Pine Tree Academy chapter of the NHS.  Requirements to be considered for the NHS reflect the four pillars upon which the NHS was created: scholarship, character, service, and leadership.  Service is at the heart of the NHS.  Start logging your service hours now, students, for it is the area that most often needs shoring up among NHS applicants.  For more information, contact Mrs. Anne Goorhuis, PTA’s NHS advisor.

National Honor Society members and friends cut out laminated phonics games for Micronesia.