PEORIA ELEMENTARY LINKS READING TO FAMILIES AND COMMUNITY

 
PEORIA, Ariz. – Peoria Elementary School Principal Phil Stanfield found himself wrapped in a seemingly endless rope of colorful paper chains, tying his hands and feet to render him useless. And he was joyful about it.

The principal challenged the 780 Peoria Pirates to read enough minutes to create a paper chain that would encircle the football field. At last count, the Reading Links Chain was 1,378 feet long and could surround the football field several times.

Stanfield and the Literacy Committee organized the reading incentive program to encourage families to read together outside of school hours. The committee divided the kindergarten through eighth-grade students into competitive clusters to see which grade level would read the most minutes in one month. Students and their parents tallied the number of minutes individual children read each evening at home. The minutes were recorded on a paper chain link and the links were connected. The challenge took place for one month, from mid-November to mid-December.

The winning grades were announced at the monthly Student of the Month assembly. Carolyn Weidner’s first-graders took the primary grades’ prize, the fourth-graders in Angela Waltner’s class won in the intermediate grades, and Peter Hart’s sixth-graders were at the top of the upper grade competition. Tracie Reisenbigler’s seventh-graders won in the junior high category. Each winning grade level won an ice cream party.

Also included during the big literacy event was a presentation by the Rotary Club of North Peoria. The organization donated Keep Books to each kindergarten and first-grade child. Club president Ken Parsons presented over 1,000 books to Stanfield who distributed the books to the youngest students to add to their home libraries. Each child got six books to keep.

Keep Books were made possible by a grant which promotes home/school literacy, and parent involvement. The program was started at Ohio State University and the Rotarians are local partners.

The Reading Link Chains continue to inspire the students to continue with their reading quest. Many teachers have decided to keep their chains up in their classrooms. Some of the chains are so long that they go around the room many times. The teachers use the chains as an incentive, and also to integrate math and reading units.