Adrian College teacher education students offer literacy night for Addison Elementary
ADDISON — From phonics to fluency, to nonfiction comprehension and interactive writing, elementary students and parents from Addison Community Schools learned quite a bit about the building blocks of reading, writing and spelling during a literacy night event last week, hosted at Addison Middle/High School and conducted by Adrian College teacher education students.
The event, held as part of March is Reading Month, was themed “Roll Out the Red Carpet for Literacy” and was intended to teach both young students and their parents some hands-on and interactive ways to make the spelling and writing process a fun way to learn.
Various stations were spaced throughout the cafeteria of the middle/high school in which the teacher education students from Adrian College presented the ins and outs of understanding words, how to form sentences and how to write letters of the alphabet. Additional learning stations included fiction comprehension, emergent/young readers, and vocabulary and spelling.
The learning experience also featured fun games for the students and parents to take part in, bags of popcorn were available for snacking, and a red-carpet photo area was rolled out for guests to take pictures.
In total, 15 teacher education students from Adrian College participated in what was an inaugural event for students enrolled in professor Jessica Patterson’s elementary education program.
Prior to teaching at AC, Patterson taught for 11 years at Addison schools. Because of her relationship with the district, she said, she found it easiest to introduce the college’s literacy event at Addison. Students who designed their projects for the event did so on their own time outside of the classroom, she said.
“They did all of this work outside of class and they have done a really, really good job,” she said.
The AC students who took part in the literacy night, who were all juniors, will be kindergarten through sixth grade certified when they graduate from Adrian College. What they taught to the Addison students and parents last week encapsulated all of the teaching standards that Patterson would instruct to her college students in elementary education.
As they were creating their presentations, each of the college students were required to have something available at each station for parents and young students to take home with them. The stations were designed to be hands-on and creative.
“These are all great, motivating activities that parents and kids can do at home,” said Addison Superintendent Dan Patterson, who attended the literacy night. “Trying to help build that literacy support at home is great. We try to have that same great support at the schools as well. We’re just trying to show parents some ways that they can help support their kids, build those good reading habits when they are young, and then use those same skills their whole life.”
The inaugural event also provided an opportunity for those up-and-coming teachers to connect with kids and try out some of the activities they have been developing.
“To me, this is all a win-win situation,” Superintendent Patterson said.
If the literacy night program manages to remain popular, it could potentially be offered at other Lenawee County school districts, professor Patterson said.
“Now that I know what this event consists of, maybe we can take it on the road to other schools in the county,” she said.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Adrian College students bring literacy event to Addison schools
