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Heather Jones Susan Metcalfe Carrie Baines Lynette Hill. Look in My Backpack: Activities to promote home literacy. Greeneville, TN . Located between University of TN and Bristol Motor Speedway Home of the 17th President, Andrew Johnson Population 15,198+/- (from 2000 Census).
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Heather Jones Susan Metcalfe Carrie Baines Lynette Hill Look in My Backpack:Activities to promote home literacy
Greeneville, TN • Located between University of TN and Bristol Motor Speedway • Home of the 17th President, Andrew Johnson • Population 15,198+/- (from 2000 Census)
Greeneville City Schoolswww.gcschools.net 2700 students served through our school system • 4 Elementary Schools • EastView • Hal Henard • Highland Year Round • Tusculum View • Greeneville Middle School • Greeneville High School • Greeneville has been the recipient of numerous national awards.
Greeneville City Preschool • 100 children served through 5 classrooms • Funding: • Three are lottery funded classrooms. • Two are pilot funded classrooms. • Four classrooms are partnered with the Head start program. Our partnered classrooms serve as a state model for other partnerships.
Greeneville City SchoolsGreeneville, TN • 5 preschool teachers • 1 Family Resource Specialist • 1 Preschool administrator
Why do literacy backpacks? • Head Start started a take home literacy program 8 years ago with 5 backpacks. • The children were excited about checking books out from school and taking them home. • The program was expanded by purchasing journals for each child in the program. • Additional books and materials were purchased using grant funds.
Research • “Home or family literacy activities for young children will help to develop vocabulary, language, phonological awareness, and interest. They cultivate understandings of narrative structure, functions and concepts of print and foster letter and word recognition as well as overall comprehension skills.”
Research Cont. • “Parents inherently want their children to succeed. An increasing body of evidence points to a child’s early years as critical to future academic and lifelong success, a shift towards greater and more structured in-home teaching is taking hold within families of young children.” • http://www.ccl-cca.ca/CCL/Reports/LessonsInLearning/LiL-1Feb2006.htm
Lynette Hill EasTVIEWELEMENTARYwww.HILLL@GCSCHOOLS.NET
Children‘s Notebooks • Each child has a 3 ring binder that goes home with him or her each night. The binder has 4 sections: • Responsibility sheet • Newsletters • Parent Communication • Literacy Journal This is used as a daily communication tool between home and school.
Check-Out procedure • Each child has a check-out list in a 3-ring notebook. • On the check-out list is a place for the name of book, date checked out, date returned, and a column to check if they wrote in the journal. • Each child places his/her notebook and book buddy in a basket located near his or her cubby. • During rest time the teacher writes in each child’s notebook and checks in his/ her book during rest time. • Each child is allowed to check out another book, or book buddy, when he or she has returned a book.
Why do I utilize literacy backpacks? • Research shows that reading aloud with young children improves reading skills. • Literacy backpacks enhance parent/ child interactions. • This program instills a love of reading for pleasure.
How Book Buddies Were Developed • Activities related to books in the classroom library were developed. These were designed to enhance skills taught at school. • Materials that were currently or readily available were used. • Mailbox magazines have an extending the story section that was used for several books (Today I Feel Silly and Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf).
Developing book buddies continued… Information pages were developed for each book buddy. These pages include the following: • Name of book • List of activities with instructions • List of materials • CD of book (if available) If a book buddy is returned with materials missing, the family is asked to replace the materials before checking out a new book buddy.
Froggy’s Frolics • We have a class mascot named Froggy. • Froggy is sent home with a child to spend a couple of nights. • The child journals about what Froggy does at his/ her house. • When Froggy is returned, we read Froggy’s story to the class. The child who had Froggy shares this with his/ her friends.
Susan Metcalfe Highland Year- Round ElementaryWWW.METCALFES@GCSCHOOLS.NET
Making Book Buddies • Find appropriate books from both classroom and personal library. • Use Mailbox, Carson-Dellosa teacher helpers, and other teacher materials to find appropriate activities for the Book Buddies. • Make Literacy/Home Connection explanation sheet and instruction sheet for activity. • Make each child a literacy notebook and give explanation of what is necessary for the journal on the first page. Examples may be included. • Send home with child over the weekend. Expect return on Monday.
Mr. Frog Activities • Mr. Frog is our classroom stuffed pet. • Mr. Frog goes home with a child each weekend. We use this as an incentive for good behavior. We put a child’s name in a hat if they have not pulled a discipline frog and draw for the week’s winner. • Mr. Frog attends every function that the student attends throughout the weekend and the student records this in Mr. Frog’s journal. The student also illustrates a picture of Mr. Frog’s weekend activities. • Mr. Frog then returns to school on Monday morning with the student.
How Often Do Book Buddies Go Home? • Book Buddies go home every Friday. At the present time we only send home a few every week because of a limited number of Book Buddies. • A Checkout Workbook is used to check out the Book Buddy and to check off return. • Check out over the weekend provides parents/students more time to complete the activities without weekday interruptions.
What Are the Expectations for Literacy Journals? • Parent participation is the first and foremost expectation of the Journals. We do expect the parents to participate. The more time that the parents spend with the child doing exciting home activities and reading with them, the more importance the child will put on reading in the future. This will make them life-long readers and learners.
Carrie Baines Tusculum View ElementaryWWW.BAINESC@GCSCHOOLS.NET
So how do I start??? • Have a collection of books that the children can check out. Small board books seem to be the most durable. • Have a check out system or someway to know who has what book. • Decide how you want to put your kits together. What materials, teacher made vs. store bought??
Mrs. Carrie’s Literacy kits • Board books or hard back books are chosen for durability. • Instructional money was used at the beginning of the year to purchase these materials. • Instead of backpacks, plastic folders are used. Many children bring their own backpack, and if they do not the folders are durable enough to make it without the backpack. • All books are recorded on tape for parents who are illiterate or do not feel comfortable reading out loud to their child.
Continued • There are many useful websites to gain ideas and clipart that follows the books used. • Some examples include Brown Bear, Polar Bear, Big Red Barn, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, the Mitten, and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. • One skill is selected for emphasis with each book. • Some examples of these skills are sequencing, counting one to one, letter recognition, and recalling.
Continued • Spanish literacy kits are included for Hispanic families. • My title page, instructions, and the books are in Spanish. The reading on tape is in English, so children can hear the story in English also.
Feedback • Backpacks and journals are checked every Thursday. Each child is called individually to discuss their journal entry. If they did not write in their journal a note is sent home asking the parent to please read with the child and help with the journal. The importance of parent/child reading times is stressed in the classroom newsletter. If necessary, this will be a topic for discussion at parent/teacher conferences.
