May 6, 2009 was a happy and joyful day with just a tinge of sadness at our final Reading Club for the 2008-2009 school year. The afternoon concluded with a graduation ceremony (complete with humming Pomp and Circumstance!) for our first graduates who attended our two summer camp/school year program! Congratulations! Each received a matted picture of the whole group, a framed copy of a poem written especially about them by Virginia Ballard and a backpack monogrammed with their initials and loaded with books!! Each also received a certificate and invitation to return when they are 16 and help other kids.

Plans are also in full swing for our third week-long day camp to be held June 15 - 19. The theme this year is “The Art of Reading.” Following breakfast, the mornings will be spent in six learning centers working on strategies for improving reading skills and we’ll use the William Tell Overture to change classes. After lunch it’s fun time: a trip to Life Adventure Camp, a visit from a local author of children’s books and to local museums as well and the UK Art Museum for a tour and drawing lesson, demonstrations, lessons and projects to include the theatre (with a VERY interesting surprise performance), watercolors, tie-dye, origami, dancing, pottery and lots of music. Please contact Julie Ross (873-6833) or Katherine Harper (254-3083) is you have ANY questions!

“The early years set the stage for later learning. Without the ability to read, excellence in high school and beyond is unattainable."  National Children’s Reading Foundation

An outreach ministry of St. Johns's, the Reading Club has been meeting regularly to rave reviews from parents and kids. We get together with about a dozen fourth and fifth graders after school every three weeks on Wednesdays, share a snack and then work in various learning centers to improve their reading. The Reading Club's goal is to help children who are reluctant and struggling readers improve literacy skills and become more confident students. The program is designed to actively engage children in the 3rd and 4th grades in fun activities, while developing their reading skills. The Reading Club program is designed to serve the lowest achieving readers as identified by their teachers and principals.

The kids enjoy it and learn a lot, too..

How can you help? LOTS of ways!  We can always use volunteers and donations.  If you are interested in volunteering, please email Julie Ross or Katherine Harper.   If you are interested in donating supporting funds, make your check to St. John’s Church and note ‘Reading Club’ on the memo line. Other ways to help:

• Provide Snacks - There is a sign-up sheet in Hosea Hall with suggestions and dates.
• Donate a wish list item (in Hosea Hall) of learning materials. . There are 2 ways to help with this wish list. You may purchase any item(s) on our wish list or we can do the shopping for you - make out a check to St. John's with Reading Club in the memo line. Then drop the check in the collection plate or at the church office.

Thanks so much for your support of this great ministry!

When kids fall behind in their reading ability, they fall behind in school and lose confidence in themselves.

Reading Club Camp 2009

Wow!  What a great, busy, hectic, long/short, fun week!  Thirty-four fourth and fifth graders learned a lot and had a ball at Reading Club Camp June 15-19.

The mornings for the staff began bright and early: Carol Filson, Ned Meekins, Ben and Katherine Harper and Julie Ross began picking up children around 7:15, transporting 21 kids to and from the church.  Jane Lucas had the kitchen humming by 7:30 to prepare two delicious meals and two great snacks each day for the fifty kids and staff (At the end of the week, Jane got the most thank you notes!).  The morning program began with breakfast, music and art work and then it was off to the six learning centers with a snack in the middle.  At each appointed time, Maribell White cued the class change with the fanfare from the William Tell Overture.  The learning centers were: Strategies taught by Sara Meekins with Beth Rowland assisting, Phonics taught by Elise Wallace and Phyllis Carey, Decoding taught by Sheryl Bruens and Micaela Rowland, Writing with Emmaline Kuebler and Rhonda Wade, Comprehension taught by Tee Fiero, and Pleasure Reading led by Linda Reeves where the children usually got one-on-one reading time to work on fluency thanks to Ed Ruggles, Evelyn Cartmill, Vickie Duff, Laurel Kemper, Betty Gill, Libby Kelly, Julie Gill, Patsy Mansfield and Si Mansfield.  One day, following a reading of Please Bury Me in the Library, a zombie/witch stopped by looking for her coffin!  Following lunch, Sara’s fabulous storytelling brought to life the “The Twits,” the story of a cantankerous and ornery couple whose antics brought much laughter from the children.

The afternoon programming followed this year’s theme “The Art of Reading.”  We couldn’t have done it without the afternoon assistance of teen counselors Anna Bostrom, Peter Bostrom, Rachel Adams, Hannah Mize, Luis Flores, Mary Hellmich, and Derrick Elder.  Jake Sargeant, bus driver at King’s Way Church, again drove the group on all of its field trips which began on Monday with an afternoon of name games, team building and rock wall climbing at Life Adventure Center in Versailles (Thanks, Jen!). 

Tuesday was a rotation of origami taught by Keiko Fukuzaki and Nana Kitao of the University of Kentucky Asia Center, wonderfully colored tie-dye t-shirts orchestrated by Julie, and Katherine, inspired by Weaving the Rainbow, led the group in watercolor painting on sheets of paper that were later cut in to strips and woven. Then it was outside for word relay races where teams raced to get letters and then unscramble the word. We followed that with a visit from a wonderful drummer-dancer-storyteller Aminada Cairo who taught about the history of African dance and taught the group several dance sequences (the girls were ‘All that!’).

Wednesday afternoon included a tour of the theatre at Falling Springs and then back to St. John’s to make large stick puppets that had everyone giggling about the faces that they made (thanks to Vickie Freeman who also loaned us lots of her great art work for our downstairs art gallery!). Then came the perennial favorite – water games!! Outside in bathing suits passing wet sponges over and under, hurtling down the slip and slide and getting splashed in the water balloon toss: a good time was had by all.

Thursday mid-morning the sky darkened and the rain poured and lightning rattled the windows. Our afternoon activities, which involved the group walking to three different locations in down town, looked to be in jeopardy. Award-winning local author George Ella Lyon arrived at the church during the downpour and read two of her books Weaving the Rainbow and Sleepsong, sang the lullaby of Sleepsong, and discussed her work as a writer. Just as we were about to open up the rain ponchos hastily purchased at the Dollar Store, the clouds passed, the sun came out and we were off on our afternoon rotation. Cleveland’s had the children read over the recipe for Strawberry Trifle and let each child and counselor assemble their own trifle (very yummy and great culinary art!). An easy stroll to the Woodford County Historical Society and upstairs and we were detectives on a scavenger hunt prepared by Laurel (How many Kentucky governors with Woodford County ties can you name?). We walked back up Main Street and stopped at iPotter to paint turtles which very much resembled the turtle from One Tiny Turtle which had been read in Pleasure Reading earlier in the day.

Friday was our big finale field trip. We boarded the bus and traveled to the University of Kentucky and ate a sack lunch under the trees in front of the Singletary Center. Once inside, we were treated to a voice demonstration, primarily opera, by Dianna Vetter. She showed the children a video of a short opera which toured elementary schools that addressed topics like bullies and strangers. The UK Art Museum opened its doors to us and gave an interesting tour of their permanent collection, explaining various ways to study a piece of art noting its line, texture and narration. The children then worked through a few worksheets to interpret their favorite pieces in the collection.

We returned to St. John’s where the kids added to the entries in their daily journals by gluing in pictures of themselves taken during the week by Linda. The children also completed a post-camp survey to gauge their experience. Most seemed to indicate that they thought that they would enjoy reading more and used words like ‘awesome,’ ‘cool’ and ‘fun’ to describe their time at Reading Club Camp, complaining only that they couldn’t come again NEXT week! We reminded them that our program resumes September 23 when we will begin meeting with the children every other week after school to reinforce and practice the skills and strategies learned during camp. Each child left with a bag of their art work created during the week, a few art supplies to make more and several books, including Weaving the Rainbow and One Tiny Turtle – after all, nothing says that you are a reader like having your own books!

Many thanks to Barbara Slater who was our nurse extraordinaire and was never rattled. Thanks to the Daughters of the King who started the week off by preparing breakfast and the Versailles chapter of PEO who packed a sack lunch for the Friday picnic.

This year was a record-setter in terms of children and teen counselors and a big part of that was due to the continued and diligent recruiting efforts of Sheryl Bruens, Rhonda Wade, Emmaline Kuebler and Carmen Wilcox, interpreter for the Woodford County Schools. Typically, not all of the children who want to come and are accepted actually show up and participate. This year was different – we had 100% in attendance on Day 1 – phenomenal!!

Finally, once again, thanks to Tim Downey and John Darsie and the Roger Reeves Memorial Golf Scramble Committee who did amazing work with the scramble and fundraising that allowed us to focus on teaching, motivating and supporting the children and not raising money. Thanks, too, to the others in our church and community who also faithfully support the work of Reading Club through their donations. We hesitated to ‘name names’ in this piece because invariably someone is inadvertently omitted. Our apologies in advance; you are all appreciated.

-Katherine Harper & Julie Ross