
DATE: Saturday, November 15, 1997           TAG: 9711150362

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY NANCY YOUNG, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   88 lines

KEEP BOOKS PROGRAM FOSTERS EARLY READING

In a kindergarten class at Rena B. Wright Primary, Mary Jane Inman is ``tricking'' her students.

``I see eight dinosaurs,'' Inman reads aloud from a small green book. The students read along in their copies and laugh when they catch the trick.

Inman feigns confusion and reads the line again. The children laugh harder.

``But that don't say that!'' one little girl says gleefully.

``What does it say?''

``A dinosaur family,'' several children respond, proud of their ability to read.

A few years ago, this probably would have been a scene from a first-grade class - and the books the children would have been reading wouldn't have been theirs to keep.

But a reading program called Keep Books has kindergartners reading books, with the extra incentive that they get to keep what they read. The program was piloted at Rena B. Wright Primary last year. It will be expanded to other city schools this academic year.

At first glance, the Keep Books, which are published by Ohio State University's nonprofit Early Literacy Learning Initiative, may not look like much. They're about the size of an index card and are stapled together. Their covers are colored paper, with black-and-white pictures inside.

But what the books lack in frills, they make up in cost and purpose. At roughly 40 cents each, the books are inexpensive enough to give 32 a year to each kindergartner and first-grader at the school. The books are also appropriate for children just learning to read.

At Rena B. Wright, the cost of the program is about $3,200 each year. That money was donated by local businesses and the school's PTA. Eventually, the funds may also come from the Title I federal program, which provides reading and math programs for educationally deprived children.

The books are just one part of the reading program at Rena B. Wright; other elements include developing more extensive class libraries, integrating subjects like science and social studies into reading classes, and assigning reading homework every night.

``We don't want them to just read in class,'' said Amy Dyer, the school's reading specialist. She said the Keep Books program makes parents active partners in teaching their children to read. At two recent Family Literacy Nights at the school, almost 500 parents and other family members came to celebrate their children's reading.

``Those little books help my daughter, and it's been very helpful to me,'' said Tonya Speller, whose daughter, Dawn, is a kindergartner in Inman's class. ``I used to try to figure out ways to teach her. Now she's reading every day; it's always something new.''

Speller said that while she has plenty of books around the house, most are too advanced for Dawn.

``In this book, she's actually pointing at each word as she reads it. That's a change,'' Speller said.

For some children, the Keep Books may be the only books they have in the home.

``We have children who come to us that don't know that a book has a front and a back, that a book has words in it, that it conveys a message,'' said Larry Short, director of elementary education for city schools.

Rena B. Wright was chosen to pilot the program in part because many of its students face obstacles to learning. A high percentage of the children come from low-income homes, and the school has some of the lowest standardized test scores in the city.

``Children come to us language-delayed,'' said Zach Quidley, the school's principal. ``The children just don't get the exposure to a rich oral and written language as they do in other communities.''

Quidley said such children need to be taught basic skills - such as training the eyes to scan sentences from left to right.

Regardless of a child's starting point, the state's new reading standard requires that each child be able to read by the end of first grade. Quidley said Keep Books gives youngsters a head start.

Speller can see the results when she compares her daughter's early reading ability to her son's kindergarten experience. He's now in third grade.

``That's why it's so exciting to me, because I can see the way he learned and how it's different,'' Speller said. ``I like the change. They're (children) not as slow as we would think.'' ILLUSTRATION: D. KEVIN ELLIOTT photos/The Virginian-Pilot

First-grade teacher Annette Kellum helps Tabitha Pope read her Keep

Book at Rena B. Wright Primary School in Chesapeake. The Keep Books

program has kindergartners reading books, with the extra incentive

that they get to keep the books they read.

Shantelle Haggins, 5, reads her dinosaur Keep Book in Mary Jane

Inman's kindergarten class at Rena B. Wright Primary School in

Chesapeake. Other schools will be included in the program this

academic year. KEYWORDS: READING