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Teachers try to reach out after school > Back
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Monday, May 17, 2004 -
By GREGG SHERRARD BLESCH, Columbian staff writer
Children sat on the carpet, their backs to a
dark and silent big-screen television.
It was a Thursday evening, and a teacher from
Crestline Elementary School was reading them stories in the clubhouse
of the Arbor Park Apartments.
As educators look beyond the school day to boost
early literacy, schools are inviting parents to classrooms and
cafeterias for events that emphasize reading and learning as family
affairs.
A teacher and counselor at Crestline, meanwhile,
have taken parent involvement to the parents.
On one evening each month since December, counselor
Elise Dalke and reading teacher Laura Gill-Dale with the Reach
Out and Read program have brought stories and crafts, and snacks
to the Arbor Park and Monterey apartment complexes, the largest
within the school's enrollment boundary in the Evergreen School
District.
About 15 children piled into the Arbor Park
clubhouse Thursday for stories and crafts. They ranged from preschool-age
to one tentative middle school student. Several moms attended,
too, and one brought her baby.
"I've come to every single one of
them," fifth-grader Eric Lowe said. "It's fun."
Gill-Dale read a simple book called "When
I Was Little: A Four-Year-Old's Memoir of Her Youth" by actor
Jamie Lee Curtis. Closing the book, the teacher invited the children
to share memories of when they were little, and the youngest responded,
"I am little."
The next story, longer and more sophisticated,
was about a girl's mementos of her dead mother. As long as the
books have illustrations, Dalke said, the kids don't seem to care
that a story is aimed over or under their age levels.
The group then gathered around a big table in
the kitchen to make "memory books."
They poked holes in foam book-jackets and paper,
bound it all together with string and decorated the books with
stars. "Some of the bigger kids might have to help some of
the little ones, OK?" Gill-Dale said as she explained the
project.
Some moms helped, too, while others sat on sofas
and chatted. Dalke, the counselor, bounced back and forth. The
sessions, she said, allow her to connect with students and families
in a convenient and comfortable place.
"This gives me an opportunity to
meet parents who can't get to school because they work all day
or have transportation or day-care issues," Dalke said.
They plan to continue the program next year
and hope to secure a grant to pay for the craft supplies and buy
books to give away.
Gregg Blesch writes about schools and
education. Reach him at 360-759-8015 or e-mail gregg.blesch@columbian.com.
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