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Shaker Schools Win “OhioReads” Grants SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio – All five of Shaker’s kindergarten through fourth-grade schools have all been awarded OhioReads Grants from the state to support efforts to bring volunteers into the schools to read to children. Mercer Elementary School has been awarded a $6,000 OhioReads Community Reading Grant while the other four elementary schools have each been awarded $2,000 OhioReads Classroom Grants. Sharron Williams, staff assistant at Mercer, explained the school ran a volunteer reader program last year in cooperation with its Parent Teacher Organization. Last fall, Williams and Mercer Parent Lynn Goodman collaborated in writing the OhioReads grant application to bolster the program. The grant pays for books the children will be allowed to keep, volunteer-training workshops, and small “thank-you gifts” for volunteer readers. “We knew that more children needed to be read to aloud and hear a good reader read to them,” Williams said. “We also looked upon this as an opportunity to bring community members into the school.” A Shaker parents’ group, Caring Communities Organized for Education, has run one volunteer-training workshop for the Mercer program and is planning others, Williams said. Two Mercer parents involved with the group, Charniece Holmes and Pat Hitchens, organized the workshops. Williams said 16 volunteers are now coming to the school regularly to read to children. “Thanks to this grant, once a child has mastered the book they’ve been reading, they are allowed to keep that book,” she said. Mercer librarian Rebecca Thomas selected books she thought the children would enjoy reading. Dr. Bernice Stokes, Shaker’s executive director of elementary education said Boulevard, Fernway, Lomond, and Onaway elementary schools will each receive $2,000 to hire a volunteer coordinator to recruit, organize, and oversee a volunteer reader program similar to the existing Mercer effort. “The more children read, the better readers they become,” Stokes said. “The volunteers offer further opportunities for children to read with an adult and be read to by an adult.” Governor Bob Taft established OhioReads last year to help improve reading skills among the state’s elementary school children in part because, starting in the 2001-2002 school year, fourth graders will be required to pass the state’s fourth-grade reading proficiency test as a pre-requisite for advancement into fifth grade. OhioReads has three major components: $40 million in Classroom Reading Grants, $10 million in Community Reading Grants, and a call for 20,000 volunteer reading tutors. Mercer Elementary School was one of 20 Community Reads Grant recipients in Cuyahoga County and one of 184 recipients statewide. Over $5 million in Community Reads Grants have been awarded, according to OhioReads. Statewide, 740 OhioReads Classroom Reading Grants totaling over $40 million have been awarded.
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