A love of reading
Published 10:19 pm Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Reading: Lakeland High School sophomore Alexa Lilley reads Dr. Seuss’s “Green Eggs and Ham” to a kindergarten class at Kilby Shores Elementary School. After the story, Lilley asked the students about the worst foods they had ever tried.
Lakeland students spout Seuss at Kilby Shores
Lakeland High School students brought the whimsical words of Dr. Seuss to first-graders and kindergarteners at Kilby Shores Elementary School on Tuesday.
It was the first time students from Lakeland’s National English Honor Society took a field trip for a club activity, NEHS sponsor and Lakeland English teacher Allison Knappenberger said.
Knappenberger said she hopes the experience will “instill the love of reading and (teach) that it doesn’t just stop at elementary school.”
Fourteen NEHS members, broken up into five groups, read familiar Dr. Seuss books, such as “Green Eggs and Ham” and “The Lorax,” to 10 classes at the elementary school.
“At our meeting, we talked about what books we wanted to read, what books (the students) read as kids,” Knappenberger said.
The group chose Dr. Seuss because his books are well known but also because March is his birth month, she said.
The little ones gathered at the feet of the high school students to hear the stories. Afterward, the Lakeland students talked with the children about the happenings and lessons of the books before assisting them with activities related to the book.
Knappenberger, Lakeland English teacher Michelle Valenta and Kilby Shores librarian Lisa O’Leary set up the event.
Juniors Sarah Peelen and Linda Mathews and sophomore Kasey Askew read “Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!” and had the students decorate paper stars with their “thinks.”
“I hope that reading to them will help them read more as they get older because reading really helps you out,” Peelen said.
In the classroom that heard “The Lorax,” the first-graders made Truffula tree bookmarks with craft sticks and multi-colored pom-poms.
Jaylan Lottimore, 6, said her favorite part of high school students coming to visit her school is when they read to her. She said her favorite book is “I Can Read With My Eyes Shut” by Dr. Seuss.
Sophomore Colby Bennett, junior Jourdan Simpson and senior Eric Kennedy told the tale of “Yertle the Turtle” to Mrs. Williams’ kindergarten class.
Kennedy said he hopes to teach the children that “there’s fun in reading.”
Knappenberger said she thinks the reading sessions went well, and she hopes the club can do it again.
“The kids seemed to be really excited about it,” she said.
