Roland Afaga Jr. (Photo courtesy of Waimea Middle School)

MEDIA RELEASE

Waimea Middle School seventh grade student Roland Afaga, Jr., earned the National Weekly Top Scorer Achievement Award for scoring more points in one week than any other student in the entire United States using TeenBiz3000 – a popular, standards-based online reading program tailored to the individual student’s reading ability.

“We are so proud of Roland, his mother Vilma Afaga, and his seventh grade educational team, including language arts teacher Liz Noetzel, for their collective hard work and dedication to excelling in reading,” WMS Principal Matt Horne said.

TeenBiz3000 is a rigorous yet enjoyable online program that is purchased by thousands of schools across the country to build reading skills.

Each day, TeenBiz3000 sends participating students a current events article.

Every student in the class gets the same basic article, but the content is customized to match each child’s reading level. The article comes with a variety of fun activities to improve comprehension, vocabulary and writing skills.

As a student’s reading level improves, TeenBiz3000 increases the level of difficulty to ensure that students remain challenged and interested.

This is the third year that Waimea Middle School has contracted for TeenBiz3000. Students have access to the program during the school’s free after-school Homework Help program and they may also access the program before school, during recess and from home if they have internet access.

Families are also given an account to be able to log in and check on their child’s reading progress. Families are encouraged to read the daily articles or call a Parent Hotline to listen to a summary of the daily article so they are able to discuss it with their child and let them know how proud they are as they progress.

Afaga isn’t just an avid reader; he’s also a remarkably good speller. He was Waimea Middle School’s champion speller in December 2011, and he went on to be named first runner-up in the 2012 statewide Scripps National Spelling Bee this past spring.

To secure the first runner-up spot, Afaga had to correctly spell more than one dozen difficult words including INCORRUPTIBLE, EXUBERANT, NEBBISH, VIVACE, MANDIR, TOKOMAK, JACAMAR and REJONEADOR.