News
July 20, 2016Education: Healthy Brains & Bodies
In its fifth fully funded summer, Dream Big Read boosts literacy skills and slows learning loss, or summer slide, during hot summer months for Schenectady City School students. Built by public librarian, Kaela Wallman, and Schenectady City School District reading teacher, Dana Russo, Dream, Big Read started July 5th at the new Phyllis Bornt Branch Library & Literacy Center, 948 State St. in Schenectady. Twenty 1st–3rd graders are visiting the library for small group reading instruction. Teaching is from at 8:30-noon each weekday. Parent lunches and education take place 12:30-1:30pm every Thursday in July.
The goal of Dream Big Read is to bring parents, families, and children to the library to introduce library services and to teach literacy skills. Struggling readers spend 3 hours each day practicing sight words, guided reading, phonics, and on computer aided literacy instruction. Brain building is enhanced by the addition of Tae Kwon Do instruction. The tenets of Tae Kwon Do, perseverance and integrity among them, can be applied to learning martial arts and learning to read. “Working with the Schenectady School District and Mechelle’s Way Tae Kwon Do School is a double dose of building lifelong learners,” says librarian Kaela Wallman, “working with educators across disciplines creates a literary bridge between the school, public library, and the community.”
The grant is a project funded by an Innovative Approaches to Literacy grant awarded by the US Department of Education to the Schenectady City School District.
