Reading to kids is a great way to connect with our community and it is something that many other schools have been doing, Park High has finally joined the trend. Sarah Dahl, the Technology Integration Specialist, in collaboration with Principal Lori Dust are launching a “Reading Rangers” program where high school students will engage with Winans students through reading sessions. ”A lot of smaller schools are able to do this because either buildings are connected or they have schools that there’s wider ranges of grades in the schools and so it’s easy (for them) to build reading buddy systems, but for larger school like an A-sized school it becomes difficult because schools are spread out and in addition to that there’s a lot of different schedules,” Dahl says. With that, their goal is to start small and see if this is something that elementary teachers and highschoolers would be interested in.
For the first Reading Rangers that was hosted Dec. 19 the boys and girls basketball team was the first group to try the program. “We wanted to test it first to see if we could do it with a group of people that are already grade checked”, Dahl says. “If there’s interest in this, and it’s not somebody who’s not necessarily involved in an activity, we will absolutely take them,” with that Dahl mentioned for students who fit the criteria to email her at [email protected].
Reading to younger students will help them develop role models and build confidence within their own reading/learning. It’s also a great opportunity to get to know the younger generations and establish connections with them. The first Reading Rangers Park High basketball team’s went in and read to grades kindergarten through first. Most of the highschoolers selected Christmas books.
Ryan Bauer, senior in highschool on the basketball team, chose a caroling book about the 12 Days of Christmas where he had to sing it to the kids he read to. “It was a workout, really got the vocals going. I haven’t sung that much since I listened to “Skyfall” by Adele,” Bauer says.
Most of the highschoolers’ favorite part was giving out the candy canes at the end, after (most of them) got through at least two books. This program holds significant potential; it benefits not only the students who read to the younger grades, but also the kids who had been looking forward to this for the past week. Dahl’s goal is to host a Reading Rangers about once every one to two months.