Welcome

Marshwood Reads - One Book, One School

April 15, 2011

Dear Families, 

We are both lucky and excited at Marshwood Middle School. We have been awarded a grant from the MEF (Marshwood Education Foundation) for a program called Marshwood Reads - One Book, One School. Being awarded this grant has provided us with funds to purchase books, incentives and awards, and special events focused on our book choice - NO district funds will be used. 

As many of you know, M.S.A.D.#35 has developed three district goals as our focus. The One School - One Book incorporates two of our district goals: providing a safe learning environment and literacy. Our goal for the program is to continue to build a culture of common literacy and to educate students and families about building a community where all are safe and can learn. This program began today at school, but we want it to carry over at home for the remainder of the school year. Each family has been given a book entitled, The Bully , by Paul Langan and a reading calendar. Our plan is to have every family at Marshwood Middle School share a reading experience and be able to engage in lively discussions. You may be asking yourself, “When will we have time to read together?” or “Reading aloud with a middle schooler?” - ABSOLUTELY! 

Research has proven you are never too old to be read to. The Commission on Reading states arguments in favor of reading to preteens and teens in their report, Becoming a Nation of Readers. First, do we know anyone who thinks today’s teenagers read too much or even enough? Secondly, every time we read aloud to or with a child, we’re giving a commercial for the pleasures of reading. As a community, it is important to make time to share and enjoy this experience together.  Let’s try to make reading a social experience to be shared with others. Nicely put by Orville Prescott, “Few children learn to love books by themselves. Someone has to lure them into the wonderful world of the written word; someone has to show them the way.” and Oprah Winfrey, “ The love of reading is more caught than taught and best caught in groups”. 

Our Literacy Committee read twelve books dealing with the theme of “bullying” for the  selection process. We wanted to incorporate two of our district goals: providing a safe environment and literacy into our choice. The resulting selection was the book, The Bully,  by Paul Langan.  This story has many themes that either your child or your child’s friends may be dealing with, such as, single family homes, moving, entering a new school, fitting in with peer groups, and joining an extra curricular activity. The Bully not only deals with bullying and changing, but the effects a bully has on an entire community. This novel will teach middle schoolers how they can take control of their own lives. 

The process of reading should be an active one. Reading has changed a lot since many of us were in middle school. You may remember when we read it was silent, by ourselves, answering questions at the end of a chapter, but now kids are encouraged to stop and think about what is going on in the book, to even discuss it aloud with someone. Research has proven reading aloud with a child is the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for success in reading. It improves imagination, listening comprehension, attention span, emotional development, and establishes the reading-writing connection. It is not that our kids can’t read; it’s that they don’t read very much as they mature and therefore aren’t very good at it when they need to be. We are sending home a bookmark of strategies your child has used as a reader. We encourage you to employ some of these strategies as you read The Bully together. We have also set up a blog for families as another avenue to share our reading experiences.  A blog is an on-line arena to share thoughts and comments on a similar topic. To access the blog go to http://marshwoodreads.blogspot.com. All comments will be read and approved before being posted. We look forward to bringing our reading experiences together as a community. 

Our goal with Marshwood Reads - One Book, One School is 

to create a shared reading experience that opens avenues of discussion on both providing a safe environment and literacy for our children.  We appreciate your support in this endeavor and look forward to a spring full of reading. At the conclusion of our reading in June, we would love to have the books donated back to the school so we could swap with other communities and start a new tradition. We We will be having trivia contests, incentives for reading participation, and  a celebration of our first ever One Book, One School. Please don’t hesitate to contact Tami Schoff; tschoff@msad35.net or at 439-1399. if you have any questions or ideas. 

Happy Reading, 

Tami Schoff

Tami Schoff

Literacy Coach @ MMS