On June 24, Grade 7 and 8 students from Russell High School (RHS) gathered at the Russell Public Library to attend the launch of their decodable books, which are carefully sequenced books to help children with letter and sound relationships. A total of 33 books were launched at the event, and after the launch, older students paired off with younger students from Russell Public School to read them. The Kindergarten to Grade 2 students had great fun puzzling out the books, which were written not according to proper spelling, but according to how the words sound when read aloud.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know writing decodable books would be so much fun,\u201d said Grade 7 student Carrie-Anne Murton. She said she enjoyed working with the district\u2019s learning partners and her classroom teacher to develop a new skill and to help younger students read. \u201cDecodable texts can help kids learn to read because it mixes words and sounds they may already know with ones they may not in order to crack the phonetic code. It was also good practice and reminders for us too.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI had no idea that I would have learned so much about reading,\u201d said Violette Bisson, also in grade 7. \u201cI thought I was done learning how to read until this project and I also learned that there\u2019s not a certain age where you stop learning, you\u2019re always learning something new.\u201d<\/p>\n
“This has been a great experience,\u201d said Grade 8 student Andrew An. \u201cIt was fun to see the kids read our words, see our images, and engage with what we did.\u201d<\/p>\n
The project was launched to bring attention to social justice issues and the Ontario Human Rights Commission Right to Read inquiry, as well as promote literacy in younger students. Two groups had half an hour each in the library, after which they were invited back to Russell High School for pizza and ice cream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Students from Russell High School and Russell Public School gathered at the library to read the decodable books they wrote. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":23948,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education"],"acf":[],"featured_media_global":[],"yoast_head":"\n