Nobody would want to spend the night in a volcano, but that’s what Stella May Swartz School principal Angie Ross promised her students if they read 12,000 books this school year.
Disclaimer: The “volcano” will be made of papier-mache and broken down cardboard boxes instead of jagged boulders and liquid hot magma.
Ross’s reading incentive program, “Journey to the Center of Swartz” is now in its sixth year, each year with a new theme along with rising reading test scores and books read by Swartz’s 150 second- to fourth-graders.
“They love it, they really do,” Ross said.
To drive the students to read more, Swartz broke up their students into four groups, evenly balanced by reading scores, to introduce some friendly competition. The concept worked well last year when students were broken into the four houses of the fabled wizardry school Hogwarts in last year’s theme, “Hogswartz.”
This year, the students were teamed into one of four earth sciences occupations: geologists, volcanologists, seismologists and excavators.
Pretty tough words for grade school.
“Even to expose them to that vocabulary will help them,” Ross said. “The more the kids read, the more fluent they become, and the more fluent they are the better the comprehension gets.”
For a school the size of Swartz, each student will have to read an average of 81.6 books this school year if they are to meet the 12,000 mark. To help out, Ross sent home a letter with each student to encourage parents to get involved, and allow students reading books to their siblings counting toward the program.
And starting this week, the countdown begins toward the day Ross will have to sleep in that volcano or not.
“It’s a whirlwind, it’s fun, and the kids are so pumped,” she said.
Notable
Each year since 2003-04, Stella May Swartz School in Oakbrook Terrace has encouraged their students in a reading program that ends with the principal spending the night in an unusual spot such as on the school roof or papier-mache volcano. From 2003-09, the Reading ISAT scores for Swartz third-graders have improved 20.8 percent.
Quotable
“That’s the beauty of a small district, you get to know your kids,” Ross said. “Parents that don’t even have kids here anymore help out, that’s part of our culture.”
Teaching philosophy
Show, don’t tell.
Favorites
Children’s book: Green Eggs & Ham by Dr. Seuss
Food growing up: pizza
Hobbies: Going to sporting events such as Sox games and son’s youth football
School subject growing up: Math (Ross was a math teacher for 10 years before becoming an administrator, and she still teaches a few courses at DePaul University).
