The Education Foundation of Odessa has received a $50,000 grant from the Carl B. and Florence E. King Foundation to grow the Bookworms Literacy Program in Ector County ISD.
“We are so grateful to the King Foundation for this special gift,” Education Foundation Director Celeste Potter said in a news release. “With the funds available, all students in grades pre-k through first grade will be given a new book each month that they get to take home and keep. That’s approximately 7,000 students that will be impacted from this grant.”
The program creates a unique opportunity for the Odessa community to partner with the Education Foundation and ECISD to promote literacy by volunteering their time to read to these books to our students. Those wishing to volunteer to read to students may contact the Education Foundation Office at (432) 456-7059.
Bookworms is designed to help increase literacy and foster a lifelong love of reading. Each month, students will read along to a story in class and then receive a book to take home to keep in an effort to promote at-home family reading.
The primary objective of the program is to reinforce at home what the student has learned about books and reading in school. Students will:
- Recognize that every word they speak can be represented by print, in books, as well as in their own written creations.
- Hold their books correctly and understand that they must read from the left to the right and from the top to the bottom.
- Identify and recognize the importance of the different parts of their books.
- Begin to identify the elements of a story such as the setting, characters, and main idea.
- Learn to use key elements of the book such as illustrations to predict what may happen in the story.
