Richland, WA

Row 2 (L to R): Tonia Kostorowski, Karen Streufert, Teresa Nastri, Kristi Beach

Kindergarten Readiness Fine Motor Toolkits

Going to kindergarten is an important milestone for young children.  They learn academic and behavioral skills, how to work independently and with others, and large-motor and small-motor skills.  Teachers at Badger Mountain Elementary School noticed that some students entering kindergarten needed practice on fine motor skills.  They wrote a grant and were awarded $1000 by the Richland Education Foundation to address the need.  The teachers assembled a Fine Motor Toolkit for each incoming kindergartener.  The kits included scissors, playdough, Wikki Sticks, pipe cleaners, pony beads, pompoms, alphabet cards, a small golf pencil with an eraser, a clothespin, and white index cards with simple lines to practice tracing and cutting.  Each toolkit included a brief activity card in English and Spanish that suggested small-motor skill activities that parents and students could conduct at home.

Prior to the start of school, teachers went to students’ homes to meet the children and parents and deliver the kits. They posted flyers in several neighborhoods indicating what day and time they would come by to visit with kits and cookies in tow.  A school administrator also came with kindergarten registration packets for families. With this person-to-person distribution method, future kindergarten students not only received a kit to strengthen fine motor skills, but they also met their future teachers.

This activity is featured in Promising Partnership Practices 2018.

Summer Reading Program

The Summer Reading Program, currently in its fourth year at Badger Mountain Elementary School, has been successful in reaching out to many of the school’s struggling readers and their families.  Weekly visits to a targeted neighborhood by school staff and local church volunteers provide students with books, interactive reading, prizes, and lunch.  The school library also is open each week during the summer so that all students and their families have access to books.

The program aims to reduce summer reading loss (the “summer slide”) for students who are struggling readers.  Teachers and the Action Team for Partnerships (ATP) gathered donated books to distribute and created fun activities that teachers and/or trained volunteers could conduct with students once a week during the summer months.  Each week, the names of at least 4 students who attended the neighborhood meeting were drawn in a lottery for small prizes donated by community partners. Students who attended at least 5 summer reading meetings had their names entered for a chance to win a grand prize of one of two bicycles.  Teachers reported that test scores for participating students were rising and K-2 students had observable gains in fluency.