SHERBURNE – In order to give children a jump start on some of the skills they need to be successful in the class room, teachers in the Sherburne-Earlville School District have put together literacy bags that will be distributed to the incoming kindergartners and pre-kindergarten age students in the district.
The literacy bags were first discussed by four teachers in the school who wanted to have an alternative evaluation. Barbara Colf, Jen Moore, Kathy O’Connor and Sue Dreyer decided to put together materials and items that could help students prepare for their first years of school.
“When we screened the children, we found a lot of them didn’t know how to handle scissors,” Dreyer said as an example, so the teachers decided to include safety scissors in the bags. The bags were handed out before the beginning of the 2007/2008 school year, after the teachers received donations from area businesses. While Dreyer admitted it is difficult to determine how much of an impact the materials in the bags had on the students, she said any experience with the materials is a good thing.
Dreyer explained that the literacy bags are useful because as state standards are raised, children are required to learn more and more at a younger age. “The bar for what a kindergarten child is expected to do has been raised. Kindergarten is more academic now. So it’s good if a child has more exposure to coloring and cutting and playing and developing fine motor skills ahead of time,” Dreyer said.
This year, the literacy bags were funded by a grant from the Chenango County Council of the Arts and through a major donation from College Street Orthopedics in Hamilton, as well as other donations from area businesses, all of which Dreyer said were very much appreciated.
The literacy bags that will be given to incoming kindergartners contain scissors, crayons, pencils, assembled stick puppets and materials for the children to make their own, alphabet coloring books, number books, nursery rhymes, an instructional alphabet book to show how to write letters, clay, puzzles and dental care items donated by the on site Bassett Dental Health Clinic. Dreyer explained the bags for the district’s universal pre-kindergarten students and other 4-year-olds in the district are similar but contain age specific materials for the younger group.
Many of the bags were distributed to parents at a kindergarten meeting designed to introduce parents to the kindergarten teachers. The bags were also distributed to the students currently attending the universal pre-kindergarten program. Incoming kindergartners who didn’t receive a bag will receive one during the summer kindergarten screening, Dreyer explained.
Dreyer said that the district hopes to continue handing out the bags in the coming years and the materials in the bags may change from year to year based on what the teachers feel works best. The kindergarten teacher explained that the parents have been very receptive to the idea of the bags so far.
“Parents want to do what is best for their child, they just might not be sure what’s best for a four-year-old or a five-year-old or what to do to get them ready for kindergarten. This is a guide to what they should be able to do,” Dreyer said.