St. Johns County Volunteer reading pals Erika Bauserman, Molly Grossholz and Barbara Brenner pose after presenting a reading work shop during the Summer Reading Conference hosted by the ELC of North Florida and the RSVP program of St. Johns County
ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla., August 5, 2015- The Early Learning Coalition of North Florida (ELC) held its first summer reading conference with the help of the Retired Senior Program (RSVP) of St. Johns County. The conference was held at St. Augustine High School for early educators and volunteers who read and mentor local young children.
The conference included two keynote speakers: Dr. Gi Gi David, a professor at University of North Florida and George Freeman, a behavior specialist with the St. Johns County School District.
A host of break-out sessions were offered with topics which related to early literacy with the purpose to further educate and inspire the more than 50 attendees from Clay, St. Johns and Putnam counties.
“We wanted to provide something special for our volunteer Reading Pals to equip them with even more skills they can use throughout the year when reading with their students,” Cheryl Freeman, director of the RSVP program said.
ELC and RSVP are fortunate to have many experienced volunteers working with our programs. Several of the volunteers, including Barbara Brenner, Erika Bauserman and Molly Grossholz are retired teachers and even children’s authors.
The aforementioned trio teamed up to share reading tips and activity ideas to use with different books. They also created a special break out session called “What Books should I Pick?” During the session, they discussed age appropriate books and shared many examples of creative extension activities to do along with reading the book.
ELC and the RSVP are looking for new volunteer Reading Pals to read once a week for about an hour to children in local child care centers, Head Start and preschool classrooms. They will be hosting a new reader orientation on Wednesday, August 26, 2015 between 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. in the conference room of the St. Augustine Record building.
To sign up for the Reading Pals orientation or for more information call Joan Whitson at 904-342-2267 or Cheryl Freeman at 904-547-3952.
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Sponsorship by the Early Learning Coalition of North Florida and the state of Florida, Division of Early Learning.
