Posted: 3:53 p.m.
Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2015
Mentor reading program underway in Middletown schools
By Rick McCrabb
Staff Writer
MIDDLETOWN —
About 100 community members gathered
Tuesday to read to Wildwood
Elementary School
students as part of the district’s MENTORead Program, said Carolyn Mack,
director of staff development.
The goal, she said, was to “develop good
readers” by having the students listen as books are read to them in small
groups for one hour. This Middletown
City School
District project was introduced at the district’s
business partner meeting late last year.
It’s important for young students to learn
“what a good reader sounds like,” Mack said. She said reading expands students’
vocabulary even if they don’t understand the words.
Mack said after the reading program, each
student will receive one free book. She hopes as the students return to their
classes, they will share what they learned with their classmates. She said 95
percent of what people learn they hear from someone else.
In October, Mack, a member of the Dayton
Chapter of Links, a women’s organization, participated in a volunteer reading
program at Madison Park Elementary School
in the Trotwood-Madison
School District. Since it
was the organization’s 65th anniversary, the members pumped $65,000 back into
the community and held a reading program that attracted 55 volunteers readers,
10 short of the goal.
Mack addressed a group of community and
business leaders in December asking them to participate in a similar program in
the Middletown
district. Her goal is to have 100 volunteers read to kindergartners, first- and
second-graders on Tuesday. She called the response from community volunteers
and business partners “overwhelming.”
Superintendent Sam Ison said the program
will create relationships with students and demonstrate to them that “reading
is a priority.” He said some students in the district don’t have anyone reading
to them outside the classroom.
He called reading “the foundation behind
everything that we do. Reading
leads to writing, which leads to everything creative that we do.”
Anyone interested in participating in the
program is asked to call Gracie Gregory, administrative secretary, at
513-423-0781, ext. 2665.
This is a good thing...