Hawthorn Academy students may have some eyes staring back at them as they read during the newly adopted Drop Everything And Read time.

As an activity with their recent literacy night, students made eyeball pointers by gluing plastic eyes to tongue depressors or craft sticks and decorating them.

“Kids don't always like to use their finger to point at the word when they're reading, especially when they're little, but we want them to so they don’t skip words, so we’re making it fun,” Hawthorn Academy literacy coordinator Beverly Griffith said. “When kids skip words or a line, it really hurts their accuracy. That, in turn, affects their understanding. This way, they can point to the words with their eyeball pointers and enjoy reading.”

She learned that trick as a teacher and often used “a witch’s finger” for students to wear, while they pointed to words as
they read.

“When we skip a line during Acadience (reading) testing, it really hurts their accuracy so we’re wanting them to read word by word and not rush; they’ll do better and understand more,” Griffith said.

It was one of about 15 different engaging activities made available to Hawthorn students to encourage literacy.

“The kids loved our several black light activities. Little kids played hopscotch alphabet under black lights where they’d hop on the letters and say them. Fifth-graders had black light synonyms. They walked around with flashlights under the black light, looking for synonyms on paper that matched the paper they had. Kids are learning reading is a fun activity,” she said.

About 130 students came to the literacy night, each choosing two Scholastic books to take home. 

“We wanted kids to build their own libraries. We also held five raffles, with backpacks full of literacy materials — full of books, notebooks, pens, pencils, markers, a flashlight,” Griffith said, adding donations, including the local Walmart, gave backpacks and school supplies, including some which were used for the activities. “A lot of kids got creative and had fun making their own bookmarks for their new books.”

Some students and their parents went to the cafeteria to read the books together, munching on the provided popcorn. Others listened to older students read. Some decided to wait and read the books during
DEAR time.

During those 20 to 30 minutes of reading four days per week, students are taking skills they learn in literacy rotations and putting them to use by reading, Griffith said.

“You teach the skills, then, apply the skills reading books in independent reading or having a teacher read with a group of kids. That’s why we introduced our DEAR time. For example, a lower grade teacher will have literacy activities and then, during their DEAR time, kids read. We are getting better at diagnosing specific problems kids have and then reteaching those skills during intervention time. During that time other readers may get enrichment activities, such as readers’ theater. That way everybody's getting what they need. It’s good for kids to curl up with a good book and this provides them this time,” she said.

Some students take advantage of the DEAR time to read for their school’s America’s Battle of the Books matches that will happen in the spring. 

This school year, Hawthorn’s competition will be offered to second through sixth-grade students. Students in small teams read 20 books and then during the contest, when posed with a question, they work together to answer it with the title and author of the book.

“A lot of those books are classics like ‘Charlotte's Web.’ We offer it during class time. This year, there are a couple short books so the teachers will read to the whole class and they'll discuss it. The kids need to keep notes about it, maybe use a graphic organizer, so they study those notes before their battles. This way, all our students — special ed kids and the kids who aren't strong readers — will know a few stories and they can participate,” Griffith said.

In addition to reading books, she said Battle of the Books provides students an opportunity to be on and work as a team and for a student captain to take on some leadership skills as only one student can answer the questions.

“Those kids will turn to their teammates and say, ‘Okay, was it one of your books? What do you think it is?’ They'll have a discussion. Those teams did well last year, because their captain listened to the teammates’ responses. Our kids are really excited about Battle of the Books,” she said.

Students also have embraced Lyrics2Learn, a music and video-based reading comprehension and fluency program to improve reading skills. 

Last year, Griffith had a few teachers pilot the program to impressive results.

“Last year, only a few teachers implemented it, and we saw huge growth in literacy in those classrooms; that’s why we want all of our teachers using it this year,” she said. “Kids sing a song with the iPad so they're improving their fluency by reading sight words faster, which helps their literacy. After they sing the songs, there's a comprehension test to see if they understood what they were singing. The teachers can individualize it, inputting their level and choosing a song theme, such as holidays or classic book, for the kids to sing. It’s helping the kids; it’s a hit.”

Another hit at one of the literacy night activities was creating bracelets out of alphabet beads.

“The kids create them, stringing the beads with a bunch of adjectives, like curiosity, friendly, helpful,” Griffith said. “It’s another way they’re learning positive messages about reading.”  λ