At Carver, Improving Literacy is a School-Wide Priority

The student body at Carver Community School poses with “The World According to Humphrey,” the latest edition in their school-wide reading initiative.

Carver Community School students went home last Friday with this year’s second school-wide read aloud title. Each student received a book, guidelines for their families about reading together, and a schedule for questions about the book to be asked at school. This semester Carver is reading The World According to Humphrey, by Betty Birney.

Each week all classrooms earn stickers and prizes for knowing the correct answers to the questions developed by Betty Wolfe, Carver’s Instructional Literacy Coach. The school-wide reading events are a concerted effort in guiding students and their families towards a rich reading life. Participation in a reading community is a strong factor in helping students become strong, avid readers and learners.

Fifth grader Savion Coleman arrived at school on Monday morning and announced that he had read two chapters over the weekend when only one chapter was assigned. He wasn’t alone.

According to Principal Cecil Brewton II: “This reading effort has been one of the most rewarding school literacy events that I’ve been a part of.”

On Friday all 589 students and the Carver staff gathered in the school gym for a group photo to further the point that everyone’s involved in the project together! In addition to the school-wide reading events Carver’s literacy campaign will also feature the installation of Little Free Libraries in the spring.

Carver will be the first school in the district to host a Little Free Library when it installs two of them to enable parents, students, staff and community to access great literature. There will be a parent library with books for adults and a separate one for students. These libraries are part of a national and worldwide network and will be registered with the Little Free Library organization.

The children’s library is being designed and created by students under the supervision of Jordan Josephson, Carver’s art teacher.

“Both libraries will be installed in front of the school as soon as the district’s operations staff is able to break ground again,” said Wolfe, who will be the steward of them.

You can access information on the libraries at littlefreelibrary.org,or if you are interested in donating books for the libraries please contact Carver school.

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