Cove ISD wins regional HEB reading contest

More than one-fourth of Texas children under the age of five not are not read to regularly. Eighty percent of a person’s vocabulary is developed by age five. Young children who are not read to regularly are not exposed to as many words as other children and they start school behind their peers.

Copperas Cove H-E-B and CCISD partnered together this year on the H-E-B 3 Read In event to give students a better chance of success in school and in life. Launched in 2011, H-E-B’s Read 3 Read In encourages parents to read to their children at least three times a week. Participation in the Read 3 Read-In required schools spend 30 minutes reading to students or have older students spend at least 30 minutes reading to themselves. Copperas Cove HEB Administrative Assistant Jennifer Cotter said she contacted the school district “and within minutes the commitment was there.”

“Texas is facing a major challenge around early childhood education and kinder(garten) readiness, so H-E-B launched a statewide early childhood literacy initiative called Read 3,” Cotter said. “This is our fifth year with this program and it makes it easier partnering up with a great organization like CCISD.”

Teachers, staff and volunteers read to more than 2,000 students in Copperas Cove resulting in the school district capturing the grand prize for the Central Texas Region for the Read 3 Read In held on September 21st. CCISD will receive $1,000 cash toward literacy initiatives within the district, said CCISD Library Coordinator Dayna Mellberg.

“Community and school partnerships such as the READ 3 program sponsored by H-E-B provide a special kind of support as families, communities and school all work toward the common goal of student success,” Mellberg said.

House Creek Librarian Roseanne Dietze orchestrated school-wide participation and said literacy is an important foundation for today’s students because it will assist in all subject areas as well as their future career.

“Encouraging and growing strong readers not only allows them to become risk-takers, but builds their confidence to approach any and all aspects of life. Reading is a vital component in every area of our student’s lives whether improving their knowledge in history, math, or filling in a job application,” Dietze said. “When they are strong independent readers, they can face all challenges.”

Clements/Parsons Librarian Robin Spencer said she wishes everyone could experience the joy in young children’s faces and hearts when they get to check out books from their libraries and share that they can read the words in them.

“Reading is an activity that is needed to accomplish work in all other content areas in school and is so important to promote life-long learning, which is our goal in CCISD, not to just teach them while we have them, but to promote a love of reading and learning so they go on to become lifelong learners, Spencer said. “When kids realize that school is not just full of isolated activities, but activities that help them in life, the community-home-school connection makes sense and the importance of learning is felt and shown by our students.

“We are so blessed to have community partners like H-E-B working together for literacy. Students need to know that reading is an activity that is associated with every part of their world, not just school. The kids understand the real world application when they participate in programs like the H-E-B 3 Read-In event.”