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Read Across America winners are from Beaver Dam, Racine and Mellen

Posted: 1/29/2010 3:42:14 PM

Kathi Gallus of Beaver Dam, Julianna Benish of Racine and Michelle Byholm of Mellen - and their students - are winners of the 2010 WEAC Read Across America Contest!

Members of the WEAC Leadership Team will visit their schools and read to their students during Read Across America Week, March 1-5.

Gallus, Benish and Byholm were selected based on their entries in which they described why they would love to have WEAC leaders join then in a Read Across America celebration at their school. Their entries were posted on the weac.org Read Across America Forum.

Congratulations Kathi, Julianna and Michelle, and thanks for everyone who entered the contest!

Their winner entries were:

Kathi Gallus

Trenton School is rural and quaint
where the CAT would love to sing and paint,
Our school is small  -
in fact we're like a family, all 115 of us have a ball!!

The second graders love to read,
and hearing guests is the perfect 'seed'
to plant
so, come and visit --- don't say you can't!!!

- Kathi Gallus and the Trenton Second Graders

I  have taught second grade at Trenton Elementary school in Beaver Dam for over 25 years. Reading is the major emphasis of my day. My students truly enjoy Dr. Seuss books with the patterned words and funny events. I love to see my children's eyes light up when they discover the joy of sounding out a new word, connecting the book to another book or event, or discovering that they are independent readers and can read a story on their own. Connecting to THE CAT IN THE HAT would really rock our world.

Julianna Benish:

I teach seventh grade English at Jerstad-Agerholm Middle School in Racine, and I have many students who are hesitant to read. It's like pulling teeth to get some of them to pick up a book. Our school does not have an organized or scheduled "reading time" so with a special guest, students might get the message that reading is important. With all of the texting and facebooking nowadays I do not want middle school students to forget to read. Some of them say, "it's not cool to read." I love books, I read books to my classes, and I display books around the room. My students see me dance and sing about books. I want all my students to share the love for books that I have and I hope that they will remember why reading is important by the time they leave middle school. If we could have a visitor like you in our building I think it would benefit students' perception of reading. I would hope that some of the negative feelings students have about reading would turn positive. We'd love to have you come read to our students here at JAMS!

Michelle Byholm:

I am the media specialist for the Mellen School District, a PK-12 one-building school district. Each year the elementary students watch the older students do “crazy things” during Homecoming Week, so I created a similar week for the elementary during RAA. During that week there are reading contests, classroom activities, dress-up days, and a reading pep rally the last day. Each year I invite several key community members to come in and read to the students. This is one of the highlights of the week. And that is why I think it would be great to have one of the members from the Leadership Team read to the students on that day. It would be the first time we would have a guest reader from outside of the community come in and read.
I’ll even make sure the dress-up day isn’t Fairy Tale day. Maybe PJ day! Can’t wait to have a “special” guest come to our school for RAA.