TURNER — When school started last fall, Corinne Rabon, 12, and Caleb Shuck, 13, didn’t like to read.

“Now I love reading,” Rabon said.

“I like it a lot more,” Shuck said. “I’m understanding it a lot more.”

The seventh-graders attribute the change to their Tripp Middle School literature teacher, Jolene Randall, who they describe as “funny” and “good.”

On Tuesday the Maine Department of Education named Randall one of six semi-finalists for the 2012 Maine Teacher of the Year award.

Randall, 48, of Greene, is a literacy interventionist, helping students whose reading skills are below grade level. Married with three children, she’s taught in the Turner-Leeds-Greene school district for 18 years.

Her students begin the literacy lab unexcited about reading.

“When they enter this classroom they say, ‘I don’t like reading. I never have. That’s why I’m here,’” Randall said. But now: “I don’t think there’s one kid I work with now that would say that.”

The most important part of her job, and how she helps students improve in reading, is putting the right book in their hands to make sure they’re reading something of interest to them, she said.

Shuck likes mystery, adventure and outdoors books. “Once I got in here, I wandered on different books. I realized what I liked more,” he said. He’s read “Theodore Boone, Kid Lawyer” by John Grisham and “Hatchet,” about “a guy who survives in wilderness and helps find this lost girl.”

Rabon likes fiction. “One of my favorite books is ‘The Child Called It.’ Another is ‘Stranded.’ Now I’m reading ‘Dream of Night,’ about a damaged girl and an abused horse.”

Randall said she helps students figure out what books they like by taking time to build relationships with them. “That’s key to all teaching: build those relationships and know who you’re working with. Then I try to help them understand who they are.”

When students’ reading test scores rise to grade level, they’re dismissed from her class.

The best part of her job, she said, “is watching striving readers become natural readers. I know that’s going to lead to success. Success means they’re going to have choices.”

Her fifth year at Tripp Middle, Randall said the school is a wonderful place to be. “I love what I do and I love being here.” Students are respectful and polite; colleagues are supportive. “Everyone makes it easy to do a good job here.” Becoming a semi-finalist is not about her, she said, “it’s about this school.”

In the nominating letter, two teachers and Principal Gail Marine wrote that Randall constantly works to know her students and creates learning experiences to help them. She has an infectious laugh, and steps into her job with a “tool belt of strategies.”

Her work is evident as students begin to enjoy reading and improve fluency and comprehension. That will help them not only get better test scores, but a better college career, a better work career and better quality of life. “How do we measure these?” the letter asked.

The other five semi-finalists are Tim Eisenhart of Westbrook High School; Paige Fournier of Lyman Moore Middle in Portland; Alana Margeson of Caribou High School; Meghan Schall of George Weatherbee School in Hampden; and Ingrid Stressenger of Pond Cove Elementary in Cape Elizabeth.

All six will undergo a selection process that will include a school visit, a professional portfolio review and an oral presentation before three finalists are chosen. The winning teacher will be announced in September.

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