JACKSON RECIPIENTS USE YELL GRANTS TO BOOST LITERACY

The $3,700 the YELL campaign raised in Jackson last year went to a lot of good causes, the recipients say.

YELL grants are helping make second-grade students at Immaculate Conception Catholic School comfortable with their first books organized by chapters. At the Millersville Attendance Center, third-graders are benefiting from a literacy program that exposes them to poetry, nonfiction and fiction, and from a whole language program that provides multiple copies of literature for the children to read and discuss.

St. Paul Lutheran School used its YELL grant to buy software for a computer program aimed at motivating students to read.

And patrons at the Jackson Public Library now have up-to-date books on finance and sex education thanks to a YELL grant.

Immaculate Conception Catholic School second-grade teacher Kathy Hotop-Raines says the transition from learning-to-read books to books with chapters is important for students. "It can be difficult. They can be intimidated," she says.

The school purchased 20 different sets of the beginning chapter books with six copies in each set.

Her students read orally every day in small groups. "We want them to enjoy reading for fun as well as progress," she said.

The school had no chapter books for the second-grade level prior to receiving the YELL grant.

Some students in third and fourth grade also use the books.

The variety of the Bridges Program purchased by Millersville Attendance Center allows the teacher to steer students in different directions, says Kim Landewee, a third-grade teacher.

"My classroom kids just loved it. It provided a lot more books for them to pick up," she said.

"Having children pick up books and read them is my goal."

Book reports are still required in school, but Landewee says students sometimes tire of just writing. "There are lots of ways to do book reports. We might do a hands-on project where the children make something with shoe boxes, or a mural," she said.

"Sometimes we sit and read and discuss them."

Thanks to the YELL grant, Gertrude Chandler Warren's Boxcar Children is just one of the books the Millersville school now has multiple copies of for its whole-language program.

The $500 YELL grant St. Paul Lutheran School received last year was used to buy more software for the Accelerated Reader Program. The school now owns $4,000 to 5,0000 in software for the program, which provides tests for thousands of books on a reading list.

Students receive points for each book read and over time can amass enough points to win gift certificates.

"The kids are motivated to read, and because it's computer generated the teacher can get a printout as to how many points each child has and how many books have been read," said Alan Lipke, the school's principal.

The program is used in all eight of the school's grades.

The Jackson Public Library makes do with a total budget of $71,000 a year, so the $500 YELL grant it received last year "means a lot to us," director Sally Pierce says. She used part of the money to buy books on finance and sex education, two of the library's most popular topics.

"With the way the stock market is going, we're always looking for more current information," she said.

Sex education books "are like magnets," Pierce said. "They attract people."

The library also bought some books on the General Equivalency Degree and on ASVAB, which is used as preparation for the military.

Part of the money also renewed the library's subscription to News for You, a newspaper written in simpler English for those just beginning to read.

The library has received YELL grants since 1991.