Students To Read

Assistant Principal Dorothy Dutterer had to discipline a boy Friday at Westminster Elementary School.And she had to do it while dressed as a panda.Fortunately, the panda get-up didn't interfere, although she did take off the cap with the funny ears. As it turned out, the boy in her office was too upset to pay much attention to her padded black-and-white pile suit and face paint.She said that if the panda suit had been so distracting as to make the boy laugh in her face, she would have asked Principal Robert Bonner to take over.

Howard County Executive Ken Ulman sat in a rocking chair in Maureen Holmquist's first-grade class at Thunder Hill Elementary while a room of close to 20 wide-eyed children hung on his every word. Ulman asked several students to join him in the front of the room to read parts of Eric Carle's children's classic "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." Ulman's appearance at the school was part of Jumpstart's Read for the Record, an international effort organized to break the world record for the number of adults and children reading the same book on the same day. Last year, nearly 700,000 readers around the world broke the record when they read the classic children's tale "Corduroy."

With Christmas right around the corner and holiday celebrations in full swing, Columbia residents are probably looking for something a little different on the party scene.Tomorrow's holiday get-together at the Riverside Roastery & Espresso coffee cafe in Hickory Ridge Plaza will be just that: a Christmas party done beatnik-style. Ten or more local high school students will read aloud their original writings and poetry.Someone will tinkle out a tune on the piano, and the readings promise to be personal and heartfelt.

While our teenagers have been minting acronyms for the English language (ask your closest-to-kin teen to define "rofl" and "ttyl"), California English educator Kelly Gallagher has taken the world of adult neologisms one step forward with his killer noun: "readicide." Here's the definition: the systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices found in schools. Too often, Mr. Gallagher explains, teachers' efforts to meet test standards churn out students who, overdosed in high school on a narrow diet of required classics and literary analysis, leave English classrooms without an ounce of lasting interest in engaged reading.

Do you know of a first- to third-grade teacher who goes the extra mile to encourage students to read? You can submit a nomination for recognition to The Sun as a "Reading by 9 Star Teacher" by calling Sundial, 410-783-1800, and entering code 4520.Pub Date: 4/12/98

America is not a country particularly proud of our literature. In the last 10 to 20 years, even classic American writers like Twain and Faulkner have become suspect. Professors are afraid to ask their students to read entire books. In that kind of climate, I don't see anything happening." - CHARLES SIMIC on the difficulties he faces as new U.S. poet laureate

Worthington Elementary School will launch its fourth annual Read-to-Feed program Tuesday with an assembly featuring Daisy the Clown and Karen Webber from the Maryland Food Bank.Read-to-Feed encourages Worthington students to read as many books as they can before Feb. 2. Family, friends and neighbors sponsor the students with donations of food, based on how much reading the pupils do.Last year, Read-to-Feed raised 1 1/2 tons of food for the Maryland Food Bank. The program -- developed at Worthington -- has been praised by Maryland schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick and the county school board.

West Meade Elementary School's reading program got off the ground yesterday as a red, white and yellow hot air balloon carried 12 students aloft for a bird's-eye view of their school as classmates and parents watched from the playground.Afterward, the school's reading specialist, Linda Rayman, passed out reading journals -- manila folders with four pages stapled inside to keep track of every book students will read by themselves, with their parents or teachers."What we're trying to do is motivate students to read not just in the classroom but at home," said Mrs. Rayman, who organizes the program with Principal Barbara Mason and Guidance Counselor Kendra Navarro.

By selecting Dorothy Farley as Maryland's high school English teacher of the year, the Maryland Council of Teachers of English has honored a deserving instructor. Affectionately known as "Far" by her students at Liberty High School, Ms. Farley embodies all the qualities of an excellent educator.She is demanding, flexible, attentive, enthusiastic, helpful. Although she teaches English, she sees her job as one of introducing high school students to the rich, rewarding and complex world of literature.

Students at Arundel High School will be hitting the books - and magazines and newspapers - this summer as part of a new initiative designed to promote lifelong reading. Previously, only students in honors or college-level Advanced Placement classes had to complete reading and other assignments during the summer months. This year, however, all of Arundel High's approximately 2,000 students will turn in a reflection on their summer reading as their first assignment in every class. Arundel is the only high school in the county to undertake such an effort.

America is not a country particularly proud of our literature. In the last 10 to 20 years, even classic American writers like Twain and Faulkner have become suspect. Professors are afraid to ask their students to read entire books. In that kind of climate, I don't see anything happening." - CHARLES SIMIC on the difficulties he faces as new U.S. poet laureate

LOS ANGELES -- With the No Child Left Behind law up for renewal this year, reformers have an opportunity to change the way the effectiveness of teachers is measured. Yet nowhere in the 75 specific recommendations made by the nonpartisan Commission on No Child Left Behind is mention made of the importance of noncognitive outcomes in the classroom. This omission is all the more puzzling because of what educators have long known about this subject based on their collective experience and a vast body of research.

The thought that she could help break a world record was enough to keep Cara Grimes awake past her bedtime. And all it required was something the 7-year-old likes to do anyway: read. The second-grader at Hilltop Elementary School in Glen Burnie was among more than 500,000 children in 28 countries who took part in a publicity stunt Wednesday to simultaneously read two pages of Charlotte's Web at noon. Organized by entertainment company Walden Media and publisher HarperCollins, the event was geared to promote Friday's release of Paramount Pictures' live-action movie.

Students at Arundel High School will be hitting the books - and magazines and newspapers - this summer as part of a new initiative designed to promote lifelong reading. Previously, only students in honors or college-level Advanced Placement classes had to complete reading and other assignments during the summer months. This year, however, all of Arundel High's approximately 2,000 students will turn in a reflection on their summer reading as their first assignment in every class. Arundel is the only high school in the county to undertake such an effort.

It seems to happen every year: Teachers assign challenging summer reading lists and book reports, and diligent children complete them - only to find that, in the crush of back-to-school activities, these assignments are overlooked. At the Institute of Notre Dame, a Catholic high school for girls on Aisquith Street in Baltimore, librarian Jim Antal decided that there should be a way to make summer reading fun and to recognize students' efforts. So on Wednesday, the entire school - including the more than 450 students and all the teachers and administrators - met in small discussion groups for 45 minutes to talk about impressions of books they had read during the summer.

STEPHANIE Fowler is my newest hope for the future of a culture. She is 22 years old and says she is haunted by language. I am 56 years old and haunted by a fear that no one else in her generation cares about language. Fowler is the winner of this year's Sophie Kerr Prize at Washington College. Washington College is on Maryland's Eastern Shore. In a moment, we will talk about students and writing at another Maryland college, whose identity will remain secret except to say it is on York Road in the heart of Towson.

THE CONGREGATION of St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church will welcome their new senior pastor at 4 p.m. Sunday at the installation service of the Rev. Richard Izzard.The service will be attended by clergy from Glen Burnie and surrounding communities. A reception will follow in the fellowship hall. It has been more than nine months since St. Paul's had a full-time senior pastor, said John Jankens, chairman of the Call Committee.Dr. Eric Peterson has served as the interim pastor since the retirement of the Rev. Richard Hase.

A bit of Seoul and Barcelona came to South Shore Elementary School last Friday through two Marylanders who participated in the summer Olympic games.Michelle Knox, a member of the 1992 U.S. rowing team, and Theresa Haught, a member of the 1988 U.S. kayak team, visited the school and presented awards to about 50 students who qualified for the school's own team, an Olympic reading team."

At 35, Donzella Curtis can finally read her mail. She can finally fill out a work application form on her own, and she doesn't need to rip documents in half to ensure confidentiality by having each piece read to her by a different person. Curtis, who suffers from severe reading and writing disabilities, is one of the success stories at Howard Community College's Learning Assistance Center, where tutors and software are available to help disabled students reach their academic and career goals.

At 3:20 Friday morning, when the classrooms at Hamilton Middle School are usually silent and the hallways empty, 11-year-old HollyannVickers closed the book she was reading and settled down to sleep - in the school library. Hollyann, with about 10 other sixth- and seventh-graders spent Thursday night at the Northeast Baltimore school for Read In! 2000, an international program encouraging students to read for pleasure. Hollyann's endurance won her a $20 book gift certificate for staying up latest to read.