NewsRoom
Beaverdam E.S. promotes reading aloud
By DAN SHERRIER
Herald-Progress Feb. 7, 2008
Reading is important. Reading to children is also important.
That’s the message that Beaverdam Elementary School is trying to get out, as the school community begins its month-long event, “One School, One Book”—a first for the school.
Throughout the month of February, the entire Beaverdam Elementary community will be reading the same book, “Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH,” with specific pages assigned for each night.
This isn’t just the kids. Teachers, administrators, custodians, lunchroom workers—everyone is reading the book. Parents included.
Beaverdam Reading Resource Teacher Sally Craymer explained, “Our goal for this as a community is to get the parents to embrace reading aloud to their children at any age.
“I think sometimes children hit an age where they can read independently and so we drop off reading out loud to them, and yet reading out loud is so important at any age, … because the children can hear books and listen to books at a much higher level than they can read books.
“Their listening vocabulary and comprehension is much higher than perhaps their reading, so if you can read them a much higher level book, then you’re introducing them to a lot of good vocabulary and good discussion.”
Each night, parents read anywhere from six to 12 pages to their children. The next day, the faculty asks a trivia question over the morning announcements, and one lucky student with the correct answer receives a small treat.
Beaverdam Elementary intends for the project to be primarily a home-based one, but throughout the day, opportunities may arise for students to become engaged in discussion about the book. Even as they pass through the lunch line, they can chat with the cafeteria workers about what just happened in the story.
In fact, Craymer intends to spend the lunch periods generating book-related conversation throughout the cafeteria.
The ultimate hope is that parents “will get hooked [on reading to children], and in the process of getting hooked, they will then begin to read more ‘read alouds,’ and the more ‘read alouds’ their children read, … the more they’ll want to read and the better readers they’ll become.” Craymer said that the idea for “One School, One Book” came from Richmond’s Fox Elementary School, which had completed a similar program. Fox Elementary, too, had used “Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH” for the project.
“We wanted to do one that Fox Elementary had done before so we could get some ideas from them. They were more than happy to share what they had done,” Craymer stated.
Craymer and her colleagues decided that “Mrs. Frisby” would be sufficiently “captivating” so as to make a “great read aloud.”
Also, “It’s old enough so that not a lot of classroom teachers have read it, because the teachers here are reading to their classes all the time.”
The timing of the program ties into the opening of Beaverdam Elementary’s new library, which is scheduled to open later this school year.
“We kind of wanted to do it this year to draw attention to the new library,” Craymer commented. “It’s so much bigger. We had this tiny library before. So that will be exciting.”
After days of waiting and days of hints, students finally learned the identity of the book at an assembly held at the end of the day on Tuesday. Students cheered, “One School, One Book!” and the faculty presented a brief skit to further generate excitement.
That day, everyone left school with a book in hand, ready to read or be read to.