LOCAL LITERACY
Jones County schools recently participated in Read Across Jones, where students engaged in various activities to promote reading and writing.
Kristen Beaver, literacy specialist for Jones County, said she was excited for the events that took place during Read Across Jones. She said the students enjoyed reading and everything that happened at their schools.
“Read Across Jones just happened, and we ran a county wide poetry contest where we had district winners. We printed the winners on yard signs, and right now they are all at the Jones County Public Library,” she said. “We hope to move them in front of stores and local businesses, because they are all about our community and bringing Jones County together.”
She said Read Across Jones had different themes each day to promote literacy in the schools, such as a pajama day. She said the Disney Critter Fixer guy visited Gray Elementary School. He wrote a book and read to the students.
“Dames Ferry had a storybook blown up for a story walk on the playground, so the students did an interactive read with that. They had to go from section to section to find out what was next, and it was just a fun way to promote reading and literacy,” Beaver said.
The literacy specialist said Growing Greyhounds were at the library to do arts and crafts with a focus on literacy during Read Across Jones.
“Growing Greyhounds is for our birth through five-yearolds. When they register, they get a backpack with a t-shirt, several books and a folder with activities to do about each book,” the literacy specialist said. “It’s to promote families reading together, and to start the reading process as soon as possible.”
Beaver said Read Across Jones and reading is important, because they want to make sure parents have access to books for their children. She said when the students enter school and they don’t have access to books at home, their vocabulary development is behind. She said they should be exposed to as much text as possible so they can become better readers and writers.
“We want our students to become lifelong learners and become ready to tackle these challenges with big words and text in the classroom. It’s important for them to come into the classrooms being exposed to that rich text, so they can build their vocabulary, empathy, cultural awareness, and much more,” Beaver said.
She said they are pushing to get more culturally diverse books in the classrooms in Jones County for better representation. They announced the Young Georgia Authors winners, and had four regional winners in Jones County to move on to state. Kenley Marler, Caleb Adams, Zoey Clanton, and Caroline Rickman are those four winners.
The literacy specialist said the students enjoyed the events of Read Across Jones and enjoyed being read to. She said she was proud of the poetry contest winners and their creativeness. She said they really showed a sense of community with their writing, and they hope to do a lot more with literacy in the near future.
“We do lots of events for Growing Greyhounds, and we will be doing another one in the spring. We are preparing for testing in the school system for literacy, because that is important,” she said. “We still have Little Jo, and the bus goes around to the schools here in Jones County. We have more plans coming up to make sure children in Jones County become lifelong learners through literacy.”
