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Tuesday, February 19, 2008
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READ ALOUD Web-site elephant key to BHS-designed program Staff Writer Does your Brainerd grade-schooler suddenly seem preoccupied with reading aloud or talk incessantly about a little globe-trotting elephant named Joe?
If so, thank two Brainerd High School math teachers and one of their brightest students.
Last fall school board member Ruth Gmeinder, as vice chair of the literacy committee of the Brainerd Noon Rotary Club, asked BHS math teachers John Blong and Don Engen if they could design a simple Web site where students could enter how many minutes they read aloud.
Gmeinder said since February is "I Love To Read" month, and Rotary's focus is on literacy, they wanted to find a way to encourage students, their families and the community to read.
But Blong, Engen and their student Cris Weber, a BHS senior, took Gmeinder's challenge one elephant-sized step farther. Working on their own time, they've spent more than 450 hours designing a Web site that not only allows every elementary student in the district to track the number of minutes the student reads, but they created an educational site where all students work together to read enough minutes for Joe Reader the Elephant to "Read Aloud The World."
Students have to "feed" Joe minutes, and then he "walks." The district's elementary students are working together to make Joe walk around the world.
The Web site template is now available from Blong, Engen and Weber, who retained the rights to the project, for other school districts to use at a nominal fee to encourage reading within their own districts. They presented the program during the "Show and Tell" event at the Jan. 17 Minnesota School Boards Association's annual Leadership Conference and two school districts have already expressed interest.
Brainerd's "Read Aloud The World" program kicked off Feb. 11 and ends March 13. For every eight minutes that one of the 2,543 kindergarten- through fourth-grade students in the district reads and logs into the system, Joe the Elephant walks one mile. His goal is to walk 90,000 miles in 30 days, or 3,000 miles a day, a goal of 10 minutes of reading per student per day. However, the first week of the challenge students averaged more than 45 minutes of reading aloud last week.
As of Monday afternoon, Joe had walked 17,819 miles and could be seen on the Web site riding whales in the Antarctic. He had already traveled through North America, Central America and South America. Students may click on Joe's route and learn more about the places he is traveling. They can see where they rank in terms of minutes read aloud in the school, where their school ranks among the other elementary schools and how the district is doing as a whole. There also are learning games on the site.
Students who want to learn more about Joe may read his family history on the Web site. Blong's daughter, Kayla, a Baxter first-grader, had so many questions about Joe the Elephant as her father was drawing the lovable pachyderm that he created stories about Joe, adding them to the Web site. Students may check out Joe's photographs taken on his many journeys. Students may enter their minutes read using their own easy-to-use login information at school or home.
"It's a unified goal of traveling around the world together but then there are those little pieces that allow for healthy competition among and within the schools," said Blong.
So far the Web site has been a hit for students and teachers alike, who have been checking frequently to see where Joe is at and where their class ranks in the district. The Web site developers have taken a lot of suggestions from teachers and continue to make improvements to the site.
"Basically we've taken ideas people have given us and we've run with it," said Blong.
Beth Swenson, Literacy Collaborative coordinator, said students are not only having fun they're reading a lot. There are many benefits to reading aloud to children, which also broadens their vocabulary.
"What we really believe in is reading and reading aloud is key to reading and we don't do enough of it," said Swenson. "In kindergarten we're seeing a lot of kids who aren't read to."
The top and most improved readers in each school and grade are recognized on the Web site each week. Grant Haglin, a BHS shop teacher, created wooden plaques for each of the elementary schools in order to list the top and most improved readers for the "Read Aloud The World" program, including Whittier and Lincoln Schools, which will be closed next year. Blong said Haglin "went the extra mile" for students.
"This is the caliber of teachers and students we have here in Brainerd," said Gmeinder.
Weber said he's learned a lot, including two computer languages, from working with his two teachers on designing the Web site. He hopes to become a computer programmer someday.
To visit the Go Joe Reader Web site, powered by CTC, go to www.gojoereader.com. To look around the Web site and check how specific schools and grades are faring, start by clicking on the middle "Peek" button.
JODIE TWEED may be reached at jodie.tweed@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5858.
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