Congratulations to the Suffolk Reading Council’s 2003-04 Reading Teacher of the Year -Kim Stickels. She is a second-grade teacher at Northern Shores Elementary School.

She has taught in Suffolk Public Schools since 2001, but has a total of 24 years of experience in classrooms in Iowa, Norfolk Public Schools and Portsmouth Public Schools.

In Suffolk, she has led division-wide teacher workshops in guided reading, served as a mentor teacher, and worked on a writing curriculum team.

In her application, she wrote about her philosophy of reading education:

&uot;I wish to create an atmosphere in which independent as well as cooperative and creative thought can be nurtured. Through motivational planning and active engagement, I wish to teach a love of words.&uot;

She believes that helping students become confident readers builds a strong, well-rounded student. She engages her students in activities such as creating super kid glasses and making their own fudge to bring excitement to textbook stories. Students even stepped in flour and then in paint to inspire comparison writings.

She wrote that if she was selected as the Virginia State Reading Teacher of the Year and received the $500 Ocie T. Rubin Reading Teacher Professional Development Award, she would fund a project where her students would interview nursing home residents and create hardbound biographies for both the nursing home and the school library.

&uot;What a treat for the children of this transient region to share time with a grandmother or grandfather&uot; figure, she said.

Call Suffolk Reading Council president Susan Rawls, a teacher at Northern Shores Elementary, at 925-5566 for more information.

The Suffolk Reading Council also announced the following school-level Reading Teacher of the Year winners:

— Booker T. Washington Elementary: Renee Russell

— Driver Elementary: Vivian Curry

— Elephant’s Fork Elementary: Alfreda Jackson

— Florence Bowser Elementary: Doris Johnson

— Kilby Shores Elementary: Amy Austin

— Mack Benn Jr. Elementary: Robbie Plain

— Mount Zion Elementary: Dana Bilby

— Nansemond Parkway Elementary: Amy Espinosa

— Oakland Elementary: Conjo Whitney

— Robertson Elementary: Tamara Morings

— Southwestern Elementary: Kathy Tillery

— Forest Glen Middle School: Barbara Mercilliott

— John F. Kennedy Middle School: Anne Whitehead

— John Yeates Middle School: Linda Bouchard

— King’s Fork Middle School: Nancy Jones

— Turlington Woods School: Brenda Spencer