Reading Camp Is The Summer Buzz At Harrison Elementary School
Posted
David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
Once a week, students are given problem solving challenges.
There are 400 students representing all Warsaw elementary schools in the Reading Camp. About 500 students registered.
This is the fourth year for Reading Camp, but the first year for the Read to Succeed and Project Achieve camps.
Read to Succeed focuses on English as a Second Language students. They participate in reading studies and activities much like the Reading Camp students. About 170 students registered for Read to Succeed, with attendance being 130 to 140 students, said coordinator Melissa Rees.
She said Read to Succeed has a couple different goals than the Reading Camp, including using testing strategies to help students pass ISTEP. Students in Read to Succeed are in grades two through seven.
Fifty-five students are attending Project Achieve, a camp targeting students with individual education plans who are part of Warsaw's special education program. Students in Project Achieve are in grades 2 through 10.
For Project Achieve, the student-to-teacher ration is about 5 to 1.
Grainey said the goal for all three camps is for students to improve in their reading levels, fluency and comprehension.
"We've had amazing results," he said. More than 90 percent of the students have improved so far, with the goal being 100 percent.
"Parents are really pleased," he said. "We have students with similar reading levels grouped together. That's the value of our pretest. No student is alone in their group."
In each of the camps, Grainey said, "We have 'swoop' teachers come in and work in smaller groups with the students." Swoop teams include six teachers and assistants on each team.
Each camp also has structured activity time. Students may play Jedi Tag, basketball, dodgeball or some other organized game, said Rees. Four classes from Reading Camp participate in activity time at a time, with two classes from Read to Succeed participating at a time.
With about 700 students involved in the three camps, Grainey said there isn't a room at Harrison Elementary that is not used. This is the first year the summer reading camps have been held at Harrison.
Rees said each student gets free breakfast.
"We're feeding over 300 kids per morning," she said.
Rees facilities the Read to Succeed camp, Grainey facilitates the Reading Camp, and both work together for Project Achieve.
The camps started June 18 for the students and runs through July 13. They attend five days a week from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Grainey said, "We try to keep the environment fun, lively and challenging."
