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October 9, 2009

Woodbridge wants all students reading by end of first grade

NJ.com

By SERGIO BICHAO • STAFF WRITER • October 8, 2009

By the end of the year, every single first-grade student in a township public school will be reading. That's the goal both school and township officials expect to achieve through a multi-pronged effort involving a revamped curriculum and promoting reading among adults.

"While it sounds like something every school district should do, it's not, and there's never been a commitment like this in our district to make sure this is done," said Assistant Superintendent Lois Rotella, who attended a press conference at the Fords Branch Library with Mayor John E. McCormac and school and township officials to launch Woodbridge Reads.
In the schools, first-graders will be taught through a new rigorous reading curriculum developed over the summer after extensive research and teacher training. A Reading Recovery program will identify students who need extra help to catch up.
In the libraries, meanwhile, the township will target parents and senior citizens through a Mayor's Book Club, including reading discussion groups and book blog on the library's Web site.
The mayor's first book choice was the John Grisham legal thriller, "The Associate." The library director, schools Superintendent John Crowe and the township council will pick other books in the future.
Officials cited research showing how children whose parents read to them, and children who live in homes with lots of books and reading materials, tend to do better in school.
"More important than the book read is time spent," said Woodbridge Public Library Director John Hurley.
Rotella said the district's new curriculum was based on practices in New Zealand, which has the highest early literacy rates in the world. Like in New Zealand, township schools will celebrate first graders who learn to read and give them a library card.
"The child and parent are celebrated. We need to refocus what's important in public education. We should be celebrate those things," she said.
Teachers at some schools will be aided by reading coaches, hired from part of an $820,241 federal stimulus grant for schools with a high number of students from economically disadvantaged homes. The district has seven such schools based on enrollment in the federal free-and-reduced price school lunch program.

High school athletes will also be enlisted to become reading mentors for the elementary school students, particularly the boys, who as a group do not read as well as girls.

"Males don't read," Rotella said. "There has been a feminization of public education that has to stop." One way to turn that around is to find books boys are interested in and give them male role models. "You have to want to read in order to learn to read," Rotella said.
Hurley noted that the township libraries offer adult courses on learning English.

About 30 percent of the township's elementary school students come from homes where English is not the primary language. At Woodbine Avenue School No. 23 in Avenel, about 65 percent of students speak English as a second language, while at Kennedy Park School No. 24, only 20 percent of the students come from primarily English-speaking homes.

School officials say language diversity is not a hindrance to youngsters learning English or how to read, noting that School No. 24 last year was awarded the Blue Ribbon School Award of Excellence by the U.S. Department of Education.
Aside from helping children become better students, McCormac believes this initiative will help the township.

"Parents are always looking for great schools," he said. "A program like Woodbridge Reads can only enhance our image."

Posted by tumulty at October 9, 2009 10:27 AM

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