Read Aloud WV

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From the Superintendent of Schools

There is time for Read Aloud in WV classrooms

CHARLESTON, January 2011 -- Sometimes it just takes two people sitting down face to face and talking for good things to happen. That is what occurred when Jorea Marple, then a deputy superintendent for West Virginia schools, and Read Aloud Director Mary Kay Bond met.

For years Read Aloud has been excluded from countless classrooms because teachers believed that reading aloud could not be part of the 90 minutes of language arts mandated by the state, Bond said.

Not so, Marple responded. In a memorandum to staff members she wrote, “I met today with Mary Kay Bond…and listened with great interest to what she and Read Aloud Volunteers are encountering in our schools.  Routinely they are being excluded from being part of the school community” because of the misconception.

She continued, saying that “reading to children is an acceptable component of our 90 minute reading/language arts block in elementary schools.” Marple called for clarification among reading instructors.

Reading is a top issue, Marple said. “Trying to ascertain the issues regarding poor achievement in reading consistently leads back to poor acquisition of vocabulary that supports a high level of comprehension. A major reason for lack of adequate vocabulary is frequency of students reading books and exposure to others reading and valuing reading books,” Marple wrote