Reading class a combined effort
“Take a look, it's in a book!” was the message a Butler Junior High School teacher and a Broad Street Elementary teacher were trying to emphasize with students during combined reading classes Tuesday and Thursday.
Second graders in Emily Goettler's class and seventh and eighth graders from Leslie Ferrari's reading classes took turns reading to one another at Broad Street Elementary School this week.
With some of the students from each of the groups trying to improve their reading skills, Ferrari said she hoped the activity would spark younger students to read more, since there are more technology distractions in their everyday environment than ever before.
“It's tough to get kids excited about reading,” Ferrari said.
Goettler said the new program has been effective.
“It really influenced some of my kids,” she said. One student said, “I want to read like those big kids did.”
Students from both classes were split into several small groups, each focusing on a book with other activities reinforcing the plot.
Eight-year-old Lizzie Smith could hardly keep still after reading “The School Nurse from the Black Lagoon” with her group. Afterward, they drew what they thought a scary school nurse might look like.
“We had to draw some kind of freaky nurse,” she said.
Other groups read children's books like “Pierre,” “The Biggest Sandwich Ever,” “Where the Wild Things Are,” “There's an Alligator Under My Bed” and “The Rainbow Fish.”
In “The Rainbow Fish” reading group, a package was passed among the second graders every time “fish” was said. One student ended up getting the package which held Swedish Fish candy.
Ashley Burk, 14, said the book stuck out as something she read often when she was younger.
“I just thought of a book I read when I was little and that came to mind,” said Ashley, an 8th grade student at the junior high.Second-graders then took turns reading to the older students. The junior high students assisted them if they had trouble sounding out certain words.The activity was not only a learning experience for the younger students, but the older ones too, Ferrari said. She hopes to expand the program to other grade levels.
