New mandates add tests
for third- and fourth-graders
By:Sally Goldenberg
Crossing state lines to redefine a national literacy celebration, 14 township preschool students shared stories and songs with first-graders 380 miles away at Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School in Cheektowaga, N.Y., Monday.
The two classes interacted through a video teleconferencing connection to kick off Read Across America, a nationwide project started by the National Education Association.
In its sixth year, the event honoring the late children’s author Dr. Seuss generated participation from students of all ages, blending grades in a week of activities aimed to stress the importance of reading.
"It really is the big push to get people to spend time with their children reading to them," said Hillsborough preschool teacher Roberta Henry.
Hillsborough High School students who work year-round with the district’s preschool students led one class in reading the children’s book "We’re Going on a Bear Hunt" by Michael Rosen. While the student teachers who earn academic credit for working with the preschool program read aloud, students from both classes recited onomatopoeias from the story.
In turn, the class in Cheektowaga, a Buffalo suburb, read "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" by Simms Taback.
Ms. Henry said she was unsure if the students would respond well to the video teleconferencing, but said she was pleased with the outcome.
"I wasn’t sure how the involvement would be. They did very well with the interactive," she said.
Suzanne Kreiswirth, who has triplets in the preschool program, said the inclusion of the teleconference will keep the literacy event fresh in the minds of her 4-year-olds. "They’re dying to be able to read themselves," she added.
Two of her children, who demonstrate below-average speech, have made progress she attributes to reading.
This year’s Read Across America coincided with a push throughout New Jersey to improve early literacy.
The state Department of Education recently announced two new tests for third- and fourth-graders intended in part to measure literacy.
Testing third-grade students will be a first for the new administration as it seeks to implement both Gov. James E. McGreevey’s mandate for third-grade literacy and the federal No Child Left Behind Act. The latter is a year-old law requiring states to test students between grades three and eight.
"The event, besides being ceremonial in some respects, is also substantive and very relevant to what New Jersey is doing at this time," said Education Department spokesman Richard Vespucci.
The new tests, dubbed New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge 3 and 4, were announced Feb. 24 and will be given to 210,000 students in May.
As education policymakers in Trenton strive for higher levels of early literacy, local districts have shown increasing participation in Read Across America, Mr. Vespucci said.
"If I had to describe the trend, I’d say it’s growing in participation and interest over time," he said.
In typical Read Across America fashion, Superintendent of Schools Robert Gulick and Mayor Tony Gwiazdowski read stories to students.
In Hillsborough Elementary School, Principal Ed Forsthoffer said reading is acknowledged through a routine monthly activity, whereby students and staff interrupt classes for 15 minutes a day each month to read a book in the hallway.
Warm up to Reading Day was celebrated Monday in conjunction with Read Across America at the school.
In addition, Mr. Forsthoffer and teachers acted out a book some classes have read, "Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type," and a mystery guest adorned in Cat in the Hat gear visited the school. The Cat in the Hat character, created by Dr. Seuss, has become a symbol of the national reading event.
"I think the kids will remember this day because it’s fun," Mr. Forsthoffer said.
But efforts to instill the importance of reading in the minds of young students are combated by the modern deluge of electronic screens, he said.
"There are many more distractions now and I think that is a concern," he said. "It’s harder to entice kids (to read) now."
The same could be said for adults, he added.
"I think quite frankly adults aren’t reading as much," he said, admitting he does not read as "voraciously" as his mother had when he was a child.
Ms. Kreiswirth echoed concern over the increasing attention children pay to electronics and said she controls her children’s exposure to screens.
"I’ve seen older kids have that distraction," she said. "We don’t have any video games and we limit the computer."
Her triplets only use the computer for educational games, she added.