Students and staff at Sherwood School should be commended for creating an innovative tool that will help parents become more involved in their child’s education, says Education and Early Childhood Development Minister Doug Currie.
“Involving parents as soon as their child enters the school system will help students enjoy learning more,” said Minister Currie. “This new video that staff and students produced at Sherwood Elementary School helps to foster parent engagement and provides parents and children an opportunity to learn in a new way. Through initiatives like this video, parents become more engaged in their child’s school lives and many realize that school, and learning, has changed dramatically over the years.”
The Sherwood School Learn to Read video was created by Grade 1 teachers at the school along with their principal, Marian Grant. The idea for the video evolved as part of the school’s development goals to engage parents in their child’s learning.
“It took two years to figure out what message we wanted for the video,” said Sherwood School Principal, Marian Grant. “We knew we wanted to engage parents early on and make them feel welcome in the school. We also know that early literacy is key to children succeeding in school, so we decided on a video that would help parents support their children in learning how to read.”
The video stars students who are currently in Grade 1 and their teachers. It focuses on the 3-P principle: Pause, Prompt and Praise. It provides parents with tips and advice on how to help children learn to read and encourages them to be involved in their child’s education.
Parents of Kindergarten and Grade 1 students at Sherwood Elementary School will receive the video this fall as part of a welcome to the school event. Later in the school year, teachers will follow up with parents to see if the video was helpful and if they have suggestions about other tools that could be useful to help their children learn.
Students at Sherwood School also had a contest to design the cover of the DVD and the winner was Riley McGill for her drawing of a mother and daughter reading a book.
“This video is a great example of the initiative shown by Island schools to engage children and parents,” said Minister Currie. “Congratulations to the students and staff at Sherwood Elementary for a job well done and for your dedication to promoting learning and parent involvement.”
The Sherwood School Learn to Read video was produced by Universum Media, a locally owned and operated video production company. Money from the Family Literacy Grant provided by the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development helped support the funding of the video.