Two Upper Valley schools kicked off a year-long emphasis on literacy last week thanks to grants from the Children’s Literacy Foundation.
Over the course of the year, the $25,000 grants will bring about 10 books to each student in kindergarten through third grade at the Maple Avenue Elementary School in Claremont and in kindergarten through sixth grade at the Waits River Valley School in East Corinth.
It will also bring hundreds of dollars worth of books to classrooms and $1,000 worth of books to the school and local public libraries. Additional perks include literacy-themed events for students, parents and community members.
“It’s a really huge honor,” said Amy Herrick, Waits River Valley School’s librarian. “We’re really lucky to have gotten it.”
The schools are two of nine schools in Vermont and New Hampshire to receive Year of the Book grants from the Waterbury, Vt.-based CLIF this year. The foundation, which has been in operation since 1998, began offering the grants to elementary schools with low-income, at-risk and rural students in the 2012-2013 school year.
“It’s all about making (reading) more fun,” said Meredith Scott, program director with CLIF.
The foundation’s employees are not literacy instructors, Scott said. Instead, they aim to infuse schools with energy and resources to enhance their existing programs, she said.
Through its programs, CLIF aims to reduce the achievement gap between students who come from families in poverty and those who do not, Scott said. The Year of the Book targets schools where at least 35 percent of the student body qualifies for free or reduced price lunch.
Research shows that increasing literacy rates in elementary school increases students’ future success, according to CLIF’s website. Children who can read by the end of third grade are more likely to graduate from high school, according to research from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Those who reach adulthood with strong literacy skills are less likely to live in poverty than those with low levels of literacy proficiency, according to research by the U.S. Department of Education.
“It’s a fundamental skill that kids need to have,” Scott said.
By helping make reading more fun, CLIF seeks to help “reluctant readers to be less reluctant,” she said.
Waits River Valley School celebrated the grant with a kick-off event last Friday. The event included distributing free books to each student in kindergarten through sixth grade. Though the school includes kindergarten through 8th grade, the program focuses on the younger grades.
The grant will also bring New Hampshire-based graphic novelist Marek Bennett to the school for a residency in the spring, Herrick said.
It will allow educators to develop interdisciplinary activities around the themes of nature, survival and wellness, perhaps bringing new plants to the school’s greenhouse, she said.
The year’s literacy activities will include collaboration with librarian Emily Heidenreich at Corinth’s Blake Memorial Library, Herrick said. Heidenreich has a background in outdoor education, which will help to shape the year’s activities, Herrick said.
This winter, the school plans to host a spaghetti dinner for families at which children will participate in an activity while parents participate in a literacy program. Parents will also receive books, which volunteers will wrap, so they can give them to their children, Herrick said. A similar program is planned for Maple Avenue Elementary School in Claremont.
Maple Avenue Principal Dan Cherry said the Year of the Book will help put books in his students’ hands. Though Maple Avenue is a kindergarten through 5th grade school, the Year of the Book grant is focused on kindergarten through 3rd grade.
“One of the things that we know is that there are a lot of kids that don’t have exposure to words or printed text in any form,” Cherry said.
Students chose books to take home during a kick-off event at Maple Avenue last week. They showed ownership and interest in the books they chose to take home, Cherry said. Without prompting from staff, several sat down and opened their finds.
“It was really pretty amazing,” he said. “It was really a very joyous, happy, engaged experience for them.”
In addition to books for the students and libraries, CLIF has given Cherry books to place in Claremont’s doctors’ and dentists’ offices and recreation centers. In doing so, he hopes to increase children’s exposure to words on a page, he said.
Maple Avenue also has several literacy-themed events planned throughout the year. On Oct. 7, Ted Shue — pronounced ‘shy’ — That Poetry Guy, will be on site to play with rhyme and rhythm, Cherry said.
Cherry said he hopes Shue, of Middlebury, Vt., will expose students to poetry in a meaningful, joyful, fun way that will inspire them to start writing poems of their own and to consider picking up books of poetry for fun reading.
South Royalton School students in kindergarten through sixth grade participated in CLIF’s Year of the Book last school year.
“It was probably the most amazing opportunity for students that I’ve ever participated in as an administrator,” said South Royalton School Principal Dean Stearns.
The program put books in students’ hands and brought authors to the school. Connecting students with authors gave them a chance to ask questions and put faces with names, Stearns said. Doing so broadened students’ understanding of what they’d read, he said.
The program also increased students’ interest in reading, which has carried over into this school year.
On Monday morning, Stearns said he crossed paths with a group of third-graders on their way back from a trip to the library. Each student carried several books.
“There’s a heightened interest in reading,” Stearns said. “We’ll continue to foster that in any way that we can.”
More information about CLIF’s Year of the Book can be found online at clifonline.org<