Students and parents gathering for study sessions at Keene
Jenna Wharton is pictured playing the game, Tower of Sight Words, with her mom Jessica Wharton on Thursday evening, Sept. 26, at Keene Elementary School. The game was one of the many activities children and their parents could take part in during a meeting of Keene’s Partnering with Parents Program. Josie Sellers | Beacon
COSHOCTON – Teachers and parents are joining forces to find fun and interactive ways to help students with their reading progress.
“We work with kids at school and make a lot of progress, but their needs to be more,” said Kirsten McPeck, who teaches third grade at Keene. “We want to get the kids and parents together to practice.”
Through a grant from the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation, McPeck was able to organize the Partnering with Parents Program that includes 12 study jam sessions for parents and students.
“We will have hands-on and interactive activities,” said Tiffany Haines, a reading intervention teacher at Keene.
The program started in September and will be held twice a month through November and then again January through March. Each session starts at 5 p.m. with a group activity and snack. Attendees then break into two groups of kindergarten through first grade and second through third grade to work on activities for a half hour. The last 15 minutes are spent checking out material to take home and practice until the next session.
“We will set up goals for your child and this will help them build confidence,” Haines said. “We will also look at those goals to help you pick materials.”
Activities are designed to help children with beginning letters and sounds, letter identification, fluency, sight words and comprehension.
“We will show them how to play the games and model the activities and be there to help them,” McPeck said.
The grant paid for the materials for these study sessions so they will have the necessary supplies to offer this program again in the future.
Thirty –two students were identified as possibly benefiting from the program.
“Those who came to the first session loved it and were excited,” McPeck said.
She and Haines are hoping this will help close the gap with reading skills.
“We saw a problem and wanted to try to do something we haven’t done before to fix it,” McPeck said. “We hope we see lots of growth.”
Category: Education
