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Log inWINTHROP: A LITTLE SUMMER READING
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WINTHROP: A LITTLE SUMMER READING
by Outspoken on Sun Aug 17, 2008 5:47 am
WINTHROP: A LITTLE SUMMER READING
BY MATTHEW STONE
Staff Writer Kennebec Journal
WINTHROP -- A poem written on a large sheet of paper sits on an easel in the corner of the Winthrop Grade School library. A small group of students sits in the four chairs facing the board.
"You've got to try to figure out who she's trying to be," Holly Lachance tells the students, instructing them to determine the poet's perspective.
The students are four of the 19 participating in a summer reading program that is new to Winthrop Grade School.
It is the first year, Winthrop Grade School Principal Jeff Ladd said, the school has spread reading instruction over the entire summer for students behind their grade level in reading ability.
It is also the first time intensive instruction has been geared to small groups of students primarily in the first and second grades. It also requires sustained parental involvement.
"This is really an opportunity for them to move forward," Ladd said.
Two mornings each week, the 19 students arrive at the school in four different shifts. They spend much of the session working in groups no larger than three students each.
The program represents a departure from the school's past summer instruction model, which focused on preventing students from backtracking on any progress they had made during the school year.
"It used to be a maintenance program," said Lachance, the grade school's literacy coordinator. "We're trying to make it into an acceleration program."
The grade-school instructors are attempting to avoid the negative stigma attached to summer school. They call the program the Summer Teaching and Reading, or STAR, program.
On Thursday morning, Lachance sat at a table with three 7-year-old girls participating in the program. They took turns reading from a picture book.
Lachance introduced a casual competition when the girls finished the book.
"When I say 'go,' you're going to find and frame two words stuck together," Lachance told the girls, instructing them to put their thumbs around the designated word. "When I say 'go,' you're going to find the mark that says, 'I'm a question.'"
http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/news/local/5316873.html
BY MATTHEW STONE
Staff Writer Kennebec Journal
WINTHROP -- A poem written on a large sheet of paper sits on an easel in the corner of the Winthrop Grade School library. A small group of students sits in the four chairs facing the board.
"You've got to try to figure out who she's trying to be," Holly Lachance tells the students, instructing them to determine the poet's perspective.
The students are four of the 19 participating in a summer reading program that is new to Winthrop Grade School.
It is the first year, Winthrop Grade School Principal Jeff Ladd said, the school has spread reading instruction over the entire summer for students behind their grade level in reading ability.
It is also the first time intensive instruction has been geared to small groups of students primarily in the first and second grades. It also requires sustained parental involvement.
"This is really an opportunity for them to move forward," Ladd said.
Two mornings each week, the 19 students arrive at the school in four different shifts. They spend much of the session working in groups no larger than three students each.
The program represents a departure from the school's past summer instruction model, which focused on preventing students from backtracking on any progress they had made during the school year.
"It used to be a maintenance program," said Lachance, the grade school's literacy coordinator. "We're trying to make it into an acceleration program."
The grade-school instructors are attempting to avoid the negative stigma attached to summer school. They call the program the Summer Teaching and Reading, or STAR, program.
On Thursday morning, Lachance sat at a table with three 7-year-old girls participating in the program. They took turns reading from a picture book.
Lachance introduced a casual competition when the girls finished the book.
"When I say 'go,' you're going to find and frame two words stuck together," Lachance told the girls, instructing them to put their thumbs around the designated word. "When I say 'go,' you're going to find the mark that says, 'I'm a question.'"
http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/news/local/5316873.html
"Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything."
Plato (427-347 BC)
Plato (427-347 BC)
