SCHOOLS: Monmouth Junction

Teachers find new ways to keep love of literacy alive

By: Melissa Morgan
   Students in Kerin McKee’s second-grade class have a way with words.
   On Monday morning, after receiving a new weekly vocabulary list, students began cutting out their words and sorting them based on long and short vowel sounds, syllables and structures.
   Throughout the week, they will continue to work with their words by playing vocabulary board games, going on treasure hunts to find words with similar sounds and using buddy sorts — sorting with a classmate — and speed sorts — to see who can categorize his words in the fastest time.
   Ms. McKee said the days of relying solely on weekly spelling tests are long gone.
   "We focus on recognizing patterns instead of simply memorizing the words," she said.
   Ms. McKee said word sorts help students sound out words they don’t know when they recognize similar sounds in the new words.
   However, word sorts are only one component of schoolwide literacy initiatives at Monmouth Junction. Betsy DeLucia, an instructional specialist in reading and chairman of the Literacy Committee, oversees the literacy program at the school.
   "We are trying to keep literacy alive," she said. "They need to have this ability to guarantee their future."
   Ms. DeLucia works with groups of students who may need extra help with reading. On Monday, she worked on helping first-graders develop their phonemic awareness, the ability to recognize that a spoken word consists of a sequence of individual sounds.
   As Ms. DeLucia called out a word, students sat around a table and picked from scrambled magnetic letters to spell out the words and then changed individual letters in the word to make new ones.
   "I’m trying to show them that language is made of tiny components of speech and sound and how to manipulate them," she said.
   Ms. DeLucia said providing students with the motivation to read also is crucial.
   "It’s important that they are constantly involved with literacy all year long," she said.
   Resource teacher Sharon Monasch said programs such as author visits and a six-hour reading club provide incentives for students.
   Children’s author Stephen Kroll kicked off this year’s six-hour reading club on Jan. 10 with a visit to the school.
   Ms. Monasch said Mr. Kroll, who wrote 85 children’s books, read to the students and autographed books. Second-grader Austin Chou said listening to the author made him think about writing books someday.
   "His books sounded really good and made me want to read more," he said.
   Ms. Monasch said the event got students excited about the reading club, which rewards students with a free pass to the Great Adventure amusement park after they read for at least six hours at home.
   Students have until Feb. 7 to complete the task.
   "I haven’t counted the minutes yet, but I read a little every day," said second-grader Max Urso. "I hope I will finish in time."
   To spur excitement for reading within the classroom, Ms. Monasch said, students also participate in weekly literacy circles. In Christina Goodman’s third-grade class, after reading a book or chapter, she divides students into groups and assigns them roles to help facilitate discussion.
   Teachers came up with five different roles for each group. Each student gets assigned a title and activity to go along with his or herrole in the circle. The artful artist draws a picture from the story, the passage master finds parts of the book that have special meaning, the common connector discusses how the book relates to their own lives, the discussion director comes up with discussion questions and the summarizer gives a synopsis of the plot.
   "The roles really help them start talking about the book," Ms. Goodman said. "The goal is to have the circles be like a Oprah’s Book Club for adults. We want to develop a community of readers that love books and read books. I hope that they love reading so much, they also have discussions outside the classroom."
   Ms. DeLucia said she hopes all the literacy programs and classroom activities will give students a solid educational foundation.
   "For academic success, it’s extremely important that they get a lot of exposure to literacy early on," she said. "If they are proficient in reading, it will carry on to other subjects. Hopefully, we are motivating them to be lifelong readers."