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Smithfield now the healthy city that reads
By Casey Hobson
The Smithfield City Council approved partial funding of a highway banner Wednesday night. The banner, which will stretch across Main Street, will mark Smithfield as "The City That Reads." Smithfield is more commonly known as the city of health. Nanette King, a 12th-grade teacher at Skyview High School in Smithfield, is volunteering to head the project. She said she would like to see the city join the high school on March 2 in an effort to emphasize the importance of reading. "For Skyview to address the issue, as a school, that reading scores are down (shows) they realize there's still a critical need to keep approaching reading," King said. King said while elementary schools and even junior high schools focus on literacy, it's rare to see a high school do it. In correlation with the National Education Association's program called Read Across America, Skyview is setting apart 15 minutes a day when both teachers and students read from a publication of their choice. King said there's no better day to focus on literacy than March 2 - Dr. Seuss' birthday. "I'd like to see the city do something every year on Dr. Seuss' (birthday) - anytime the city would like to coordinate their program with the schools," King said. King told the City Council a banner would cost somewhere between $150 and $200, and said Skyview has offered to cover $100 of the bill. The council said it would look at the budget and see where it could pull the money still needed. "I think this is something that could continue to be a coordinated effort, but nothing big," King said. "We just felt this was a cool way to publicize it. It's just an attention getter." Other schools in Smithfield are participating in the NEA's Read Across America program as well. On March 2, Sunrise Elementary will have a "readathon" in their rooms for 2,000 seconds - roughly 33 minutes. Lunch will be green eggs and ham and teachers will read Dr. Seuss stories while wearing Dr. Seuss hats. Summit Elementary School will have a party in each room, and fourth-graders will be performing a readers' Theater for Third Graders. All teachers will wear "Cat in the Hat" hats resembling those in Dr. Seuss' books. Skyview also plans to do miscellaneous reading and writing competitions
between English classes. |
Archived Months:
September
1998 |
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