NEWS
By Anica Butler and Anica Butler,sun reporter | October 13, 2006
Dana Perdue takes her third-grade classes bowling, attends karate competitions and treats the pupils she mentors to lunch. "The more I can give to them outside of school, the more they can give in the classroom," the Central Elementary School teacher said. Perdue, 27, also mentors new teachers and is credited with helping the school earn some of the highest standardized test scores in the state. For her dedication and hard work, Perdue was honored this week with a $25,000 National Educator Award at a surprise announcement at the Edgewater school.
NEWS
By JACQUES KELLY and JACQUES KELLY,SUN REPORTER | July 13, 2006
Anna Iacoboni, who came to Baltimore as an immigrant and became the matriarch of her family with four generations of descendants, died of congestive heart failure Sunday at St. Joseph Medical Center. She was 98. Born Anna DeNicolis in Brazil, where her parents were temporarily working, she grew up in the village of San Salvo in the Abruzzi region of Italy. "As a child, she carried water from the town square to her home," said her grandson, Thomas M. Culotta, who lives in Remington. "She could talk about World War I troops coming through her village and how her family hid food from them."
NEWS
By KATHERINE DUNN and KATHERINE DUNN,SUN REPORTER | March 1, 2006
To watch Sheree Ledbetter work the court for Southside, it's hard to believe she never wanted to play basketball in the first place. The lightning-quick moves to the hoop, the effortless flight for a rebound and the smooth three-pointers might never have emerged had Ledbetter not listened to her father when she was in the third grade. Until then, she spent most of her time watching television or playing hide-and-seek with her friends in their Cherry Hill neighborhood. "One day my father said, `I'm going to make you start doing something.
NEWS
By Artika Rangan and Artika Rangan,SUN STAFF | August 22, 2004
Under the federal No Child Left Behind standards, all students in the country must score proficient or advanced on their state's test by the 2013-2014 school year ---- a challenge that the 22 third-graders at Norrisville Elementary School in White Hall already have accomplished in reading. Each Norrisville child scored proficient or better on last spring's Maryland State Assessment's reading section. In math, 81.8 percent of the third-graders scored at the proficient or advanced level.
NEWS
By Howard Libit and Howard Libit,SUN STAFF | January 6, 2002
The head of a Baltimore nonprofit group that brought phonics-based reading instruction to some city schools in the 1990s has been tapped to head President Bush's $975 million reading initiative. Christopher J. Doherty, executive director of the Baltimore Curriculum Project, is set to begin tomorrow as director of the president's Reading First initiative, overseeing the distribution of grants to states and school districts that use approved reading-instruction programs. "The bill stresses that the federal government must focus in early reading on those programs that have been scientifically proven to be effective," Doherty said yesterday.
NEWS
By Kalman R. Hettleman | July 24, 2001
PRESIDENT BUSH'S education reform plan includes federal support for efforts to enable all children to read by the end of the third grade. Early literacy has become a national crusade. Poor readers rarely catch up if they fall behind early. In fact, the newest research shows that reading by seven - in the first grade, with age-appropriate fluency and comprehension - is the first crucial milestone. The landmark 1998 report of the National Research Council, "Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children," explains that "students become readers" during first grade.