Jackson Read Aloud group photo

Story time at the county fair

by ChaptersParents and Families

Story time with Read Aloud had children glued to their books all week long at the Jackson County Fair this summer. 

Camped underneath a shady tree, sprawled out on a rug in front of their camper, or standing in the middle of the sidewalk, kids squeezed in whatever time they could to get lost in a book they enjoyed. Cheryl Miller, a volunteer with Jackson County’s Read Aloud chapter, said she was amazed by the passion for reading she saw at the fair. 

Jackson County volunteers first set up a read-along booth at the county fair in 2019, and found success. They reached dozens of children by gathering kids around a storyteller, reading to them, and singing songs, Miller said.  

Jackson County Read Aloud returned to the fair this summer. Story time was now an official event at the fair, with one hour dedicated each day. Children also browsed through the Jackson County Read Aloud booth throughout the day.  

With the help of grant funding, Jackson County Chapter President Janet McCauley said they worked the Jackson County Board of Education to purchase books and supplies. They set up a barn scene in the Exhibit Hall, where kids picked up different farm animal visors and tote bags. 

They sifted through eight large bins of books. They took all they could carry. Every book was gone by the end of the sixth and final day, Miller said.  

“The folks who remembered us from the first event were just really happy to have us back,” said Miller.  

Since kids were choosing the books themselves, they found more interest in them, and let the inspiration from accomplishment transfer to their next book. The enthusiasm for reading was present throughout the fairgrounds in Cottageville, Miller said.  

“A lot of kids and their families camped out there all week, and so they just built story time into their daily routine,” she said. 

When she wasn’t at story hour, Miller said she pulled a red wagon around to try and reach everyone. Some of the kids had to work most of the week at their family’s exhibit, so Miller wanted to ensure they were included too. 

“Jackson County is a communinty that values reading and shows it,” said Read Aloud Executive Director Dawn Miller. “More than once since that fair, I have met people who commented that their children attended story time, and they talked about how much they enjoyed it. This made a lasting impression on these famailies.” 

With the success of this year’s event, they want to come back next year. As far as outreach to children and families goes, story time at the county fair couldn’t have been a better method, Cheryl Miller said. 

“One day I was walking around, and I heard a dad say, ‘Sadie, you can read that book, but you have to wait until we get back to the camper,’” she said. “Sadie was just standing in the middle of the sidewalk, trying to read her book.” 

A friend told Miller about meeting a young child in a local hair salon a week after the fair, who refused to put a book down until she was finished. Her mother said she’d chosen it from Read Aloud’s booth.  

The girl finished her book at the salon. She grew even more excited when another woman told her the book was just the first in a wonderful series. 

“I think that children are just naturally drawn to stories, and someone who enjoys reading and telling those stories. They were caught up in the enthusiasm of the stories,” she said. “We just made it so much fun.” 

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Students wrap up school year excited, ready to read

by Book DistributionEnrichment IdeasEventsPartners

By Kristen LeFevers

Students at four schools received some new, special books to enjoy over the summer while they are away from the classroom.

This year, Read Aloud West Virginia offered its Summer Book Binge to schools in Greenbrier, Jackson, and Kanawha counties. The program is based on a Tennessee study showing that giving children about half a dozen freely chosen, high-interest books prevents summer learning loss better than summer school.

A Crichton Elementary student receives his “Binge on Books” tote bag filled with books to read over the summer.

In Greenbrier County, Crichton Elementary students from preschool through fifth grade browsed a sample set of books this spring. Teachers were encouraged to help students find books they would enjoy. Students were able to hold and examine the books before filling out their order forms.

Students received their books at a Memorial Day assembly after a ceremony to honor students’ accomplishments and local veterans.

“It was a moving and reverent ceremony recognizing veterans in the Quinwood community,” said Read Aloud Executive Director Dawn Miller. “The parents’ and grandparents’ presence really shows students that the time they spend reading is important and valued. And it is always good for adults to be reminded what an important influence they are.”

Students walked up one at a time and received a blue Read Aloud tote bag containing their specially chosen books, each plated with the child’s name, an important feature of the project stressing book ownership.

The process was repeated in other schools. In Jackson County that same week, the Jackson County Community Foundation, which funded the project, dressed the Gilmore Elementary School assembly room with festive beach accessories, highlighting the fun, buoyant atmosphere of summer reading.

Jackson County Community Foundation Executive Director Misty Hamon put together a colorful balloon arch for students to walk through as their names were called to receive their personalized Read Aloud book bags.

About 150 third- through fifth-graders at Gilmore and Cottageville Elementary, like their peers in the other counties, browsed sample books ahead of time and chose six books they wanted for the summer, then walked up one at a time to receive their special order.

“We’ve had so much support from the Community Foundation,” said Read Aloud of Jackson County Chapter President Janet McCauley.

“The Foundation really made this book distribution into a special event for these kids,” Miller added, “exactly the message kids need to get from the adults around them.”

A festive balloon arch and beach-themed decorations courtesy of the Jackson Community Foundation for the Book Binge assembly at Gilmore Elementary.

“‘I got all the books I wanted!’” McCauley recalled hearing more than one student say. “The kids were so excited and pleased to get their books. It was so, so personalized for them. If they choose their own books, they’re more likely to read them.”

The summer reading fun didn’t stop there, however.

“The state office [Read Aloud West Virginia] are very frugal and are able to order some of their books from their distributors for cheaper than they expected, and get extra copies,” McCauley shared. In this instance, that frugality led to “leftovers,” or extra copies that McCauley was able to present at other schools throughout Jackson County.

“All of the leftover books have been distributed in the county,” McCauley said. “I guess you could call it a book tasting or a mini book binge.”

McCauley distributed the leftover copies at elementary schools in Fairplain, Evans, Kenna, and Ripley. Students were able to pick three books of their own.

“Read Aloud is so good at stretching their money, and other students were able to benefit from the leftovers,” McCauley said.

At Chesapeake Elementary School in Kanawha County, preschoolers through fifth grade followed a similar process, thanks to a grant from the Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation. At an assembly at the end of the school year, students applauded each child as their name was called to receive their books. That distribution is part of a larger project with Chesapeake that will include another book give away in the fall.

By preventing summer learning loss, Read Aloud helps students to succeed in school and throughout life. Researchers have documented that children who are not exposed to enjoyable books and other summer learning opportunities will lose reading skill during the summer. They gain again when they go back to school, but over time these losses accumulate, so that by 12th grade, children can be a year or more behind their peers and their potential in reading skill, which affects everything else – including school and job prospects.

Giving children books that they are motivated to read during the summer prevents this summer learning loss. As children spend time with books, they practice skills they learned in school. They also build vocabulary and background knowledge, an important ingredient in reading comprehension at any age. They also discover that they enjoy it.

Read Aloud’s first Summer Book Binge was held at Crichton Elementary School in 2016, and within two years, reading scores there rose noticeably, exactly as the Tennessee research predicted.

Read Aloud West Virginia will be looking for opportunities to introduce the Summer Book Binge into other schools across the state in the coming year.

Kristen LeFevers is a graduate of Marshall University and lives in Huntington.

Lessons from the research

by Parents and FamiliesReading

Here’s what data and experience tell us about closing the word gap and helping West Virginia students to succeed, says Christy Schwartz, of the West Virginia Department of Education’s Campaign for Grade Level Reading:

— Keep reading aloud to children from birth to adolescence, and keep educating families about the need to do it. Reading aloud does more for vocabulary development than talking with them, which is also good.

— Encourage teachers to read to students daily.

“If children are responding well to a book you’re reading, encourage them to find another in the series, in that genre or by the same author that the teacher might read with them,” she said.

Summer reading projects highlight the importance of access and family involvement

by NewsReading

By Lesley McCullough McCallister

 Sunshine and warm temperatures mean summer break is upon us! While children may be focused on how many summer hours can be spent at the pool or playing outdoors, it is equally important to encourage them to read while they are away from the classroom.

According to Richard Allington, co-author of Summer Reading: Closing the Rich/Poor Achievement Gap, any child who fails to read during the summer will lose some reading proficiency during the break. (It is the equivalent of an athlete who stops training and loses physical skills.) Children from low-income families are particularly at risk. National research shows they  routinely lose two to three months of reading proficiency every summer, while middle-income families gain about a month, resulting in a three to four-month gap building each summer. Allington notes that the main issue seems to be access to books, not lack of ability. He cites the fact that low-income families own fewer books than middle-class children, and on average, middle-class students have ten places to buy or borrow books in their community for every one place accessible by a low-income neighborhood.

While Read Aloud West Virginia’s Book Distribution Program gives books to students in participating schools through a variety of programs throughout the year (Snuggle and Read, Kindergarten Round-up, and special family participation events), special emphasis is increasingly given to distributing reading material in the weeks leading up to the summer break. The success of a trial project, which began in one school in Greenbrier County in 2016 has led to an expansion of the project into two additional schools located in Fayette and Raleigh counties. Funding from the Carter Family Foundation and the West Virginia Leaders of Literacy: Campaign for Grade Level Reading has made this expansion possible.

According to Read Aloud West Virginia Executive Director Mary Kay Bond, the summer reading project is built on a partnership between educators, families, the State Read Aloud office and local chapters. First, Read Aloud staff and local chapter volunteers meet with school faculty to discuss the program and share the books which will be available to students: typically 120 titles representing a wide range of interests and reading levels. The faculty are encouraged to display the books in their classrooms, discuss or read short passages from various titles, and generally build excitement about reading books during the summer. Weeks later, local Read Aloud chapter volunteers return to the school as shopping helpers. Each student is invited to create a list of their top six book choices (and two alternate selections). The selected books are then prepared with personalized book plates bearing the student’s name on the inside front cover of the book. The six new books are placed in a tote bag and affixed with two tags, one with the child’s name on it, and the second with a tip sheet for families explaining all the ways they can help their child maintain or build reading skills over the summer months. Families and students are invited to a year-end celebration where the importance of summer reading and the role families play in raising enthusiastic readers is discussed. Finally, each child is called forward individually to receive the tote bag containing the book selections they requested earlier that month.

“The excitement of the children is palpable!” said Bond. “One child said it felt like Christmas.”

This simple project has yielded great results. Reading scores at Crichton Elementary, where the project is in its third year, have been raised from the lowest in the county to the highest. The principal notes staff and students are gaining valuable instructional time in the fall since they do not have to spend the early months of the school year remediating students and getting them back to their previous skill level. It is a win/win for teachers and students alike.

When creating a summer reading plan for a child, families are urged to make it fun and keep it simple. Suggestions, all of which are FREE, include the following:

1) Read to your child daily. Reading even 10 to 15 minutes a day can help them keep up their literacy skills and transition back to the school year more easily.

2) Let your child see you reading regularly on a daily basis. Habits are caught more than taught.

3) Visit the library together and enroll in a library summer reading program. Also, sign up for a free library card.

4) Let your child choose the material. Comic books, magazines or books about various subjects are all reading.

5) Limit screen time. Children need time to “unplug” from TV, video games and other electronic devices.

6) Spend time talking, singing, dancing and drawing with your child to encourage their creative side and introduce them to new words.

All of these activities are free but valuable!

The benefits of summer reading will help your child further a sense of discovery and develop positive attitudes about books, as well as maintain reading proficiency during summer break, which in turn will help your student transition back to the classroom in the fall more easily.

Lesley McCullough McCallister is a Read Aloud supporter, volunteer reader, newsletter contributor and a  freelance  journalist.

 

 

 

Importance of Summer Reading

by Reading

By Sara Busse

Ahhh… summer. Time for kids to kick back, take a break, put away the books. Well, no.

Google “the importance of summer reading” and you’ll see that while it’s good to relax and enjoy the less-structured school vacation days, it’s never a good idea to stop reading.

Jim Trelease, reading guru and godfather to Read Aloud West Virginia, touts the importance of summer reading by citing a study of 1,600 sixth-graders in 18 schools showing that reading four to six books (chapter books) during the summer was enough to alleviate summer loss.

In his pamphlet, “Summer Reading,” Trelease, author of The Read-Aloud Handbook, discusses reading programs at local libraries as an important tool for parents during the summer. He also explains that, at first, ten to fifteen minutes of sustained silent reading (SSR) is appropriate for children who are not used to reading for more than brief periods of time. Later, when they are used to reading in this manner, the time can be increased.

Scholastic, provider of books and educational materials in tens of thousands of schools and tens of millions of homes worldwide, explains that learning or reading skill losses during the summer months are cumulative, creating a wider gap each year between more proficient and less proficient students. By the time a struggling reader reaches middle school, summer reading loss has accumulated to a two-year lag in reading achievement, according to an April 2007 study by Richard Allington.

Teachers typically spend between four to six weeks re-teaching material students have forgotten over the summer, according to the article “Lasting Consequences of the Summer Learning Gap,” by Karl Alexander, Doris Entwistle and Linda Steffel Olson. And in The Power of Reading, Stephen Krashen points out that “reading as a leisure activity is the best predictor of comprehension, vocabulary and reading speed.”

Finally, in the ”Kids and Family Reading Report” conducted by Harrison Group and Scholastic:

  • Having reading role-model parents or a large book collection at home has a greater impact on kids’ reading frequency than does household income.
  • An overwhelming 92 percent of kids say they are more likely to finish a book they picked out themselves.
  • Ninety-nine percent of parents think children their child’s age should read over the summer.
  • Parents think their children should read an average of 11 books over the summer, ranging from 17 books for children ages 6-8, to six books for 15- to 17-year olds.

So let the kids sleep in, swim, run in the yard and enjoy a little downtime. But make reading a part of the fun and the rewards will be seen in the fall — and throughout their lives.

Sara Busse is a long-time Charleston resident and community volunteer.

Nickell Foundation supports summer reading in Greenbrier

by Book DistributionChaptersEventsNewsSupporters

A $5,000 grant from the Mary B. Nickell Foundation brings Read Aloud one step closer to full funding of a summer reading initiative in Greenbrier County.

The pilot program is modeled after a longitudinal study by literacy researchers Richard Allington and Anne McGill-Franzen. The University of Tennessee education professors found that providing self-selected books for summer reading was as beneficial to reading achievement as summer school. Read Aloud will work with the Greenbrier County Campaign for Grade Level Reading to implement the program at Crichton Elementary.

“These funds, along with a grant of $3,000 from Greenbrier County’s Hollowell Foundation, bring us much closer to our goal of $10,000 for full implementation in all grades at the school,” said Lynn Kessler, Communications and Development Director for Read Aloud. “We’re extremely grateful to both the Nickell and Hollowell Foundations for their votes of confidence in this project.”

The Mary B. Nickell Foundation administers funds entrusted to it for the promotion of the arts and for educational purposes to encourage the development and appreciation of the arts and for the promotion of the happiness and well-being of the community centered in and around Greenbrier County.