By: Cassidy
Tolley
Soon, senior students of Ripley High School
will once again become regulars at Ripley Elementary. They will be joining the Read Aloud West
Virginia program to volunteer their time to the students of the elementary school. Read Aloud West Virginia is an ongoing
program in our state, started in 1987.
It was founded by a group of Kanawha County parents to “help raise a
state full of readers”. Read Aloud WV
relies on volunteers to read to children in classrooms, day-care centers, and
after-school programs to promote the importance of reading.
In Ripley, the Read Aloud program has been a
success for the past few years with the help of parent volunteers and other
community members. Now, Ripley High
School is getting involved to support the cause. Seniors who are service learning have the
opportunity to become a member of Read Aloud WV and read to Ripley Elementary
School students.
“All volunteers, including our students,
must first go through training in order to join the program,” said Read Aloud
coordinator and counselor at RHS, Tina Holley.
The training for Read Aloud consisted of
speakers instructing the high school students of what they might expect and
what is expected of them in return. Once
a month, a senior service learner will be able to visit a classroom at the
Elementary School and read a book of their choice. The book is recommended to be pre-approved by
the Ripley Library. The student is
recommended to be very familiar with the book and should read through the
material at least three times.
“Little kids view older teenagers as role
models,” said Holley “By reading to them, we hope that our students at RHS will
help to set a positive example about the importance of reading.”
October 12 was the first day
Ripley High School began to participate in the Read Aloud program, and so far
it has been a great success.
“The students really seemed to enjoy it,”
said senior service learner Krissa Scarberry. “They laughed a lot.”
No comments:
Post a Comment