Linda Holt is lead teacher for the Title I school-wide reading project at Ha'iku School in Ha'iku. As a reading teacher, Mrs. Holt has developed an approach that asks students to select from a menu of response options designed to guide their reading comprehension in ways that parallel mature reader strategies. Students keep Literature Response Journals where they record the imagined outcome of a story, offer advice to characters, and conduct interviews with authors. Mrs. Holt credits the approach "as a powerful strategy that immediately improves the quality of students' interaction with literature." Of her many mentoring and inservicing activities as a member of Title I, the International Reading Association and the Hawaii Writing Project, Mrs. Holt says, "Whenever I go to share, I bring back more than I took." The Hawaii Department of Education honored Mrs. Holt as 1995 Hawaii State Teacher of the Year.
