{"id":6886,"date":"2017-08-07T08:08:17","date_gmt":"2017-08-07T12:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/?p=6886"},"modified":"2017-08-13T10:27:41","modified_gmt":"2017-08-13T14:27:41","slug":"title-reading-camp-helps-students-avoid-summer-slide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/title-reading-camp-helps-students-avoid-summer-slide\/","title":{"rendered":"Title I reading camp helps students avoid summer slide"},"content":{"rendered":"

20.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the number of books that rising fourth-grade Birdneck Elementary student Jae Roberson has read since school has been out for summer.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Schoolmate Athena Alexander has read 17 books in that same seven-week time span.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve read \u2018Gingerbread\u00a0Pirates,\u2019 \u2018Give a Pig a Blanket\u2019 and right now I\u2019m reading \u2018Wacky Wednesday\u2019 which is about wacky things that happen to this girl on Wednesdays,\u201d Alexander, a rising second-grader, said.<\/p>\n

Roberson and Alexander are two of 800 students enrolled in the school divison\u2019s Title I Summer\u00a0Slide program, which is now in its fifth year and is intended to engage students in reading and minimize learning loss during the summer months while children are out of school.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe provide a fun, interactive literature curriculum, called Scholastic Lit Camp that also incorporates fun summer activities,\u201d according to Lynn Hodges, a Virginia Beach City Public Schools (VBCPS) Title I instructional specialist, who oversees all of the Title I\u00a0Summer\u00a0Slide camps offered at 12 schools across the city.<\/p>\n

At Birdneck Elementary, each week starts with a campwide meeting in the library with all 50 children who attend the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe give prizes for attendance because every day that they come in they put in their name in that little box on the bench and we draw names at random,\u201d said Christina Brooks, a Summer Slide program coordinator at Birdneck who is a second-grade teacher at the school during the school year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more you\u2019re here, the more chances you have of winning\u201d is Brooks\u2019 mantra to encourage children to keep up their attendance so they don\u2019t miss out on reading and literacy.<\/p>\n

From their Monday morning gathering, students head to classrooms where their day is filled with reading and writing\u2014that\u2019s after a breakfast meal provided by the school division\u2019s Office of Food Services.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the classrooms it\u2019s all literacy based,\u201d Brooks said. \u201cThey do a lot of whole group reading, shared reading, or read books individually based on their reading level. They also do a lot of writing, either in journals or by responding to prompts based on a book or just something that they did over the weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Third-grade teacher Megan Peterman says she knows that the program is working because she can see students\u2019 excitement when they focus on a different book each day – and it\u2019s typically one that they have not read before.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also introduce new vocabulary, do a writing piece that goes along with the book, or have them write in their journals,\u201d she says as she flips through one child\u2019s book that has a letter to his mom about how much he is enjoying the Summer Slide program.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A few doors down, since all of the classes are in the same hallway, rising first-graders are busily tacking on paper legs to their moose artwork. Glued on each moose\u2019s tummy is a short answer to the writing prompt \u201cIf You Give a Moose a Marshmallow,\u201d which is the title of the book that they read earlier that day.<\/p>\n

Their answers to that prompt are sentences like \u201cIf you give a moose a marshmallow, he will ask for hot chocolate,\u201d or \u201cIf you give a moose a marshmallow, he will ask will ask for more.\u201d Those answers were to be read at the end-of-the-year program for parents, which was scheduled to start momentarily.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

At the conclusion of the program for their parents, students each received two books, a boxful of school supplies and a bag filled with books and activities based on their individual grade levels.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe give them a lot of materials to take home to hopefully carry them until school starts,\u201d Brooks said.<\/p>\n

Brooks also says another way that they hope students continue to keep up their literacy skills is by visiting Virginia Beach Public Libraries, one of the program partners which visits once a week.<\/p>\n

During their visits, library staff treat students to fun lessons all based on books. Library staff also assist students in logging the number of books they have read each week. Thus far, the 50 students at Birdneck have read 1,250 books, according to logs. Divisionwide, students in the Summer Slide program have read\u00a023,641 books.<\/p>\n

The library also provides fun incentives such as books, games and coupons to local businesses that have family activities.<\/p>\n

Another partner is the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), which visits twice during the four weeks the program is in session.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of MOCA\u2019s visit was based on the children\u2019s book \u201cBeautiful Oops\u201d which is about a story how when you think you\u2019ve made a mistake, you still can turn it into something beautiful,\u201d Brooks said.<\/p>\n

After reading the book with students, MOCA guest artists illustrated the book\u2019s life lesson by taking crumbled paper and with ink creating fun stamps.<\/p>\n

Every student received a copy of the book.<\/p>\n

The only downfall of the camp, in Roberson\u2019s opinion, is that she has to wake up early every morning during the summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I still like it because it is going to help me be a better reader in fourth-grade.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

20. That\u2019s the number of books that rising fourth-grade Birdneck Elementary student Jae Roberson has read since school has been out for summer. Schoolmate Athena Alexander has read 17 books […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":6887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[31],"class_list":["post-6886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-literacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6886"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6895,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6886\/revisions\/6895"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}