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Storybook Art Comes to Life for Robinson Gardens Children at Talk/Read/Succeed! Summer Learning Program

Storybook Art Comes to Life for Robinson Gardens Children at Talk/Read/Succeed! Summer Learning Program

News Storybook Art Comes to Life for Robinson Gardens Children at Talk/Read/Succeed! Summer Learning Program

Jeremiah Wiggins, 7, pauses as he paints a building at the Eric Carle Museum on a recent field trip from Dorman Elementary School.

Seven-year-old Jeremiah Wiggins held his colored pencils tightly as he sketched neat lines across a white sheet of paper on a recent morning at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst. Next came the task of pasting tissue-paper triangles, circles and rectangles in bright reds and blues.

“I’m drawing a building because my dad said that if you can draw a building, you can be an artist. And I want to be an artist,” said the resident of Springfield Housing Authority’s Robinson Gardens Apartments.

Jeremiah is one of 45 pupils at Dorman Elementary School who are attending the Talk/Read/Succeed! summer learning program, a collaboration of the SHA and other city agencies and organizations on a quest to improve literacy among young people. Funded primarily by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, T/R/S! unites forces at Robinson Gardens and Dorman, and at John L. Sullivan Apartments and Boland Elementary School in an approach that embraces families at all ages and levels for a comprehensive approach.

News Storybook Art Comes to Life for Robinson Gardens Children at Talk/Read/Succeed! Summer Learning Program

Michele McBride, coordinator at Dorman School’s Talk/Read/Succeed! summer learning program, leads pupils through an exhibition room at the Eric Carle Museum.

This year’s summer program at Dorman has a new twist: A collaboration with the Eric Carle Museum, which won a $32,250 from the Irene E. & George A. Davis Foundation to work with educators, pupils and parents on arts-based literacy initiatives at the school in the Pine Point section of Springfield.

For the summer learning program, it means weekly visits to Dorman and Robinson, and the recent field trip to the arts- and literacy-rich museum.

Children like Rosemarie Resto-Soto had an easy time describing what was good about the field trip.

“I like it here. You get to see pictures, and you get to paint. It’s fun. You make pretty pictures,” she said.

Michele McBride, summer learning site coordinator at Dorman, said the Eric Carle piece fits perfectly with the T/R/S! mission of boosting literacy rates. And as an important bonus, it’s just plain fun stuff for the children.

“Truly, this is literacy at its best for children,” McBride said. “Here at the Eric Carle Museum, they are seeing the importance of the pictures that they love, as well as the words. It really brings a new aspect of literacy for them.”

News Storybook Art Comes to Life for Robinson Gardens Children at Talk/Read/Succeed! Summer Learning Program

Dorman summer learning pupils listen as Meghan Burch, guided art program educator at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, prepares them for a arts project.

Indeed, children were as excited making their own pictures in the sunny studio as they were on the exhibition side, where picture-book art is on full display. At an exhibit featuring the life and work of award-winning children’s book illustrator and museum namesake Eric Carle, the Dorman summer learners excitedly offered their analysis as they viewed framed images of animals hanging from trees and dancing in the rain.

Exhibition coordinator Kristin Angel said the Dorman children, ranging from entering kindergarteners to fourth graders, are at a perfect age to begin growing a love of art and museums.

“For many of these children this is a first exposure to art in a formal setting – they’re starting to have a dialogue with art,” Angel said. “They’re not inhibited about asking questions and interacting, and they’re able to see here that there’s a process to creating art.”

Museum Education Curator Rosemary Agoglia said the grant, which came from Davis via the Funder Collaborative for Reading Success, administered by the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, is already bringing good things to Dorman.

The collaboration will extend through the upcoming school year, with visits to Dorman by Eric Carle artists and educators, who will work with teachers as well as parents and children on arts and literacy initiatives.

News Storybook Art Comes to Life for Robinson Gardens Children at Talk/Read/Succeed! Summer Learning Program

Soon to be kindergartners Kyanna Marin and Danielys Martinez-Colon enjoying their day at the Eric Carle Museum in Amherst.

For the summer program, an outdoor-based literacy curriculum designed by the Hasbro Learning Initiative, the new collaboration will bring weekly visits that include arts projects, readings, book gifts, as well as workshops with parents and children.

That also included the day at the museum, which was a big success.

“I like this place because you can make pictures of things,” said five-year-old Danielys Martinez-Colon.

“I’m drawing a lot of colors, with triangles and squares. I’m using a color that looks like a cheetah,” she added.

Children in last year’s T/R/S! summer learning program either kept even skills, or advanced by one or two levels. Typically, children who take an academic break during the summer months lose skills.

Overall, the Funder Collaborative for Reading Success is looking to boost skills to the point where 80 percent of third graders are on level. That would be an increase from 2008, when just 30 percent of Springfield third-grade children were reading on grade level. That number is now at 40 percent.

4277 days ago / Youth Programs
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