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Twenty-two of Ellicottville’s finest students worked with ECS teacher Leah Farnum for six weeks over the summer. The reading summer camp was held at the Ellicottville Memorial Library and is supported by the Rotary Club of Ellicottville. The goal of this program was to help students keep their fluency and comprehension skills at their current grade-level to avoid the dreaded “summer slide.” The goal was to maintain current reading rates, which was accomplished, and more than half of the students increased their reading rate.Each day started with a high frequency word poem. High frequency words are words that appear most often in our written language. This served as a warmup and a review of important words learned from the previous school year. Arguably the most fun part the camp was the literacy/stem connection. The “hook” for the summer was a weekly challenge that supported literacy as well as science, technology, engineering, and math. Each week a picture book was read that had a STEM connection.
Each student left the summer program with a folder full of tools to continue to practice until their return at ECS with the expectation that family members will“take the torch” from here and practice these passages with their child. In addition, the library had increased foot traffic because of this program. Several of the parents stayed while their kids were at the camp. Even some older siblings stayed in the library and then walked their younger siblings over to the Park Program when the reading camp program ended for the day.
The Rotary Club of Ellicottville is proud to support the library and this reading camp and a huge thanks to Leah Farnum, ECS Teacher and Laura Flanagan, Library Director for their dedication to this program and the literacy of our children.