Adrianna Genco, Scarlett Hepler (Jayla Johnson’s Aunt), Caryn Hepler (Jayla’s grandmother), Jayla Johnson and Siena Loomis participated in a Thanksgiving close reading activity in Corey Brown’s third grade classroom.

Local author and illustrator, James Vincent, recently read aloud from his book, “Not For Now, But Soon,” to the delight of a large group of Fletcher Elementary School families during the school’s recent Family Literacy Night.  Mr. Vincent, who has been a substitute teacher at Fletcher School in the past, was delighted to attend.

“I can remember when I was a kid in grade school. The teacher read a book aloud and I was so entertained and fascinated, I couldn’t wait to get up afterwards and look at the book closely,” said Mr. Vincent. “I think reading aloud is an underrated form of entertainment. It is so important to read and when I read aloud I try it put every bit of emotion and character into my readings.”

Mr. Vincent’s visit was just one activity planned by the Fletcher FaCE (Family and Community Engagement) Committee for their Literacy Night. They hoped that seeing how Mr. Vincent reads his books aloud would help families better read aloud to their own children. In addition to the read aloud, each grade level held a special activity in their classrooms. For example, the fourth grade team read a book about Native Americans and talked about how to make inferences about what the author meant but wasn’t discussed in the text. Kindergarten discussed story elements and how to make feeling and emotions part of the story. First grade talked about the parts of a book such as: author, illustrations, characters, etc. They also suggested questioning your child what the story is about. Second grade showed parents how to ask the right questions about what they are reading with their child including who, what, when, where and why. They also discussed story elements and character development. At the end of the night each child was given four Scholastic books at their reading level to take home.

“Our goal is strengthening our partnerships between school and home by building our parent’s capacity to support their child’s learning, especially in literacy and in math,” said Fletcher Elementary School Principal Maria DeJoy. “Our goal is to empower our parents to help their child with their learning to increase their child’s academic success. We want to have at least 50 percent of our parents attending at least two of our family engagement events this year.”

Fletcher School’s goal is to provide parents opportunities to increase their capacity in supporting their child at home by attending events for the whole school or individual events that teachers and grade level teams have planned. This is important to Fletcher staff because they first value their students, their parents and families, and secondly, they know they can also learn from the parents about their child and what works best at home. Fletcher School’s FaCE team has also planned some events throughout the year to support reaching their goal.

Each Jamestown school formed a FaCE team, as an intended outcome of the Karen Mapp Family Engagement training they received during this past summer.

FaCE committees are, essentially, schoolwide action teams, populated by the principal, school staff, community partners and parents, that work together to build a yearlong, multi-strategy plan that increases the capacity of both staff and family in the 4 C’s: Capabilities, Connections, Cognition and Confidence, inspiring teachers and families to form powerful, linked-to-learning partnerships to enhance student performance and enable systemic school advancement.