Celebration of Reading at Lumberg Elementary

From Jeffco Schools Messenger:

A Celebration of Reading was kicked off this Wednesday, December 13th at Lumberg Elementary. To prepare for this, ten classroom teachers sorted about 2,000 new books, an average of 7-12 books for each student, for over 200 students, to increase home libraries and take-home book programs for all students in kindergarten through third grade in both the English and Dual programs. We welcomed 34 families to personally pick up their children’s books and to celebrate with us the opportunity to distribute so many books which will positively engage our students in reading!

How did this all begin? As part of the district’s early literacy initiatives, Literacy Interventionists are able to provide students they teach with books the students get to choose and keep to read over the summer. A conversation that was held at the beginning of the school year with Literacy Interventionists, Curriculum and Instruction administration, and English Language Arts Content Specialists started Sophie Schwedland, Literacy Interventionist at Lumberg Elementary, thinking about the impact of doing this earlier in the school year for her students. This coupled with the engagement and literacy growth in reading outside of school which third grade teachers saw the previous school year, spurred her on to do something new, so she contacted Joel Newton of the Edgewater Collective. Mr. Newton worked with a local donor to donate enough books so that each student in Mrs. Schwedland’s groups received several books early in the fall to beef up their home libraries. Her students became so motivated to read more that she went on to win over $3,000 in grants from Dollar General, Westerra, and Mary Pope Osborne. These were used to fund a combination of books mostly in their first language, which are theirs to read and keep at home and finally became the Celebration of Reading above.

Mrs. Schwedland believes that the love of reading and finding books one is interested in are foundational! How contagious is the passion for reading at Lumberg now!

Joel Newton

Joel has been a resident of Edgewater, Colorado with his family since 2012. He is the Executive Director of local education nonprofit Edgewater Collective and Editor of the Edgewater Echo.