600 students, 57 book discussions, all in one day

North Main Literacy Day features book discussion settings to learn lessons and make life connections, By Nancy Kriz MONROE - North Main Elementary took on an “Oprah-esque” atmosphere Tuesday when more than 600 students in four grade levels participated in 57 book discussions as part of the school’s second annual Literacy Day. Small groups of students were segmented by their individual reading levels and teamed up with special adult facilitators to talk about the books they had read over the past month. In a setting more intimate than the larger classroom surroundings, students talked about what they liked or disliked about their books, their characters, lessons learned and messages about and connections to real life. Students read all the time in school, officials acknowledged, but added Tuesday’s Literacy Day was different. “We’re bringing the school together as a community of readers,” said Lisa Landau, a second-grade teacher who co-chairs the school’s Literacy Committee with Laurie Rosenbloom, the school’s librarian. “We are getting together for a common purpose. We’re getting them to do what adults do when they discuss literature.” 'Memories are important’ And like adults, the children offered their creative insight and viewpoints on their books. One second- grade group discussed Tomie dePaola’s “26 Fairmont Avenue,” the story about dePaola’s memories of his younger days in 1938 and 1939, including the challenges the family encountered during the construction and landscaping of its home. Second grade teacher Tammy Gerow, the group’s facilitator, led her group in the discussion of dePaola’s slice-of-life recollections of his youth and encouraged them to comment about his writing. With their book pages filled with Post-it Notes, they were opinionated and were equally quick to offer their own slice-of-life comparisons. Gerow kept the group on task, steering them back to the book’s messages if their comments went too far off base. The little students were independently able to identify the messages important to them and how they connect to their own lives. “Memories are important,” said second-grader Ethan Divon. “When you feel sad, you can think about happy things. That can help you to have happy feelings.” Second-grader Vicki Pochat found something in the book which appealed to her. “Patience is important,” she said. “Being patient is good. That’s important in life.” One of the fourth-grade groups discussed Jerry Spinelli’s “Fourth Grade Rats,” the story of transition from third to fourth grade which ultimately offers an important message about peer pressure and the importance of being oneself. Led by facilitator Dolores Terlecky, the school’s assistant principal, this group also talked about their emotions and feelings. They drew analogies from when they were transitioning up to the fourth grade themselves and looked for connections to life in the North Main environment. They spent time talking about the book’s many characters, offering opinions on the traits of those characters’ personalities. Terlecky asked them to draw pictures of how they viewed the characters to show an additional perspective on each character’s traits. Giving students a forum The older students had their own interpretations of the book’s messages. “To me, the important lesson is if you do something bad, then probably something bad is going to happen back to you,” said fourth-grader Daveas Espinal. “There are wrong choices and right choices.” His classmate Colleen Kinsella saw something different. “If you are mean, you won’t have many friends,” she said. “You can change how you act.” Both students liked the book discussion concept and hoped to do it again soon. “We’re doing the same thing the older kids are doing,” said Colleen. “I like the group setting, listening to different opinions. You can see what other people are saying about the book and learn different things.” That pleased Rosenbloom, the school’s librarian, who said the school wanted to purposely have students gather with those not in their regular classrooms to experience a new reading round-table opportunity. “Reading can be fun in addition to the educational aspect of it,” Rosenbloom said. “If you give students a forum to talk about a book in a different setting, everyone can be involved in an intimate setting. It really lets them go 'outside the box.’” Landau added the day also served to remind students of the importance of reading. “We read for a variety of purposes,” she said. “Reading is a lifelong skill. This is an additional step in that direction.”

Reading is important for driving. If you didn’t know how to read, you couldn’t read the stop sign and you could crash into someone. And reading helps you when you need to know something.” North Main second-grader Ethan Divon