Web Site of the Month: Ready! Set! Read!
Walter Minkel -- School Library Journal, 3/1/2002
Ready! Set! Read!
www.alief.isd.tenet.edu/smith/smith/content_areas/library/readysetread.htm
This simple site help one school perform a big job—encouraging family literacy. The Bush Administration's recent education program stresses the importance of exposing preschool children to books and reading, yet many parents are not readers themselves. Programs like this one—"Ready! Set! Read!" at Smith Elementary School in a predominantly African-American and Latino area of Houston, TX—help to meet the needs of parents as well as children.
Songs, Fingerplays, and a Book: Since almost half of Smith students come from families that don't speak English fluently and nearly 60 percent of students are on free or reduced lunch, the situation begged for a way to show parents how to share books with their children. Terra Almogabar (talmogab@smithmail.alief.isd.tenet.edu) the librarian at Smith, says the program, started with $2000 in grant money, intended to increase parent involvement in the school. She begins each session by reading a story aloud. She leads the group in songs and fingerplays, in order to stimulate language development. Later, she shows the parents ways to stimulate literacy skills in their children, while the kids look at books. At the end of each session, parents receive a copy of the book Almogabar first read to the group.
Basic but Important: The site itself is very basic—it consists of a home page that announces the dates of the Ready! Set! Read! programs for this school year, the goals of the program, and links to some fingerplays, song lyrics, and booklists in PDF form. "The parents receive a copy of the songs and fingerplays [available on the site]," Almogabar says, "and they'll put these [materials] in notebooks they received at the beginning of the year." The sheets are available online to print out and use.
What's Next: "I know we would like to continue with the program," says Almogabar. "I would like to develop book/tape kits for parents to check out." She feels the kits would help the many parents she serves who are "not confident in their English-speaking skills."
