POMARIA — As part of their spring reading initiative, Pomaria-Garmany Elementary will receive a special visit from the Columbia Fireflies mascot on March 3 to help promote reading and literacy in schools.

“What they do is invite schools to participate and if the school agrees to participate, they set up a date for the students to come down and be recognized for meeting certain reading goals,” said Amy Milstead, Pomaria-Garmany’s reading coordinator. “We’ll kick it off the last week of February into March and we will determine certain goals for the students to have to make it to first, second, third base and then a home run.

“Once they’ve completed those steps, we’ll complete an order form and they’ll get a ticket,” Milstead said. “Essentially it’s done in the classroom, so all of our students will have the opportunity to attend a Fireflies game.”

When the mascot visits, assistants will be on hand to read to the classes, and Milstead said that aside from the mascot visiting, the baseball aspect will also get them excited.

“Baseball is a huge part of the community around here so I think that’s huge too. I think also just the invitation to be able to go to a game is a huge part of it. We have a lot of parents in our community that will support taking their kids to that game,” said Milstead.

The week leading up to the mascot visit is also Read Across America Week, where Dr. Seuss’s birthday is celebrated.

Throughout the week, PGE will be celebrating with various activities including dressing as a favorite book character, PGE principal Lindsey Folk will go on the morning news and read to the classes as well as students having green eggs and ham and a rice crispy treat to honor Dr. Seuss’s birthday.

“I think this helps the kids to have something to work towards and it helps them to set a goal. It just helps them see that literacy can be fun. Our classes have their reading goals and we’ll have celebrations for those that have met their reading goal. We try to take it back to something all of our students can do and we always try to take it back to literacy,” said Milstead.

Along with efforts to promote literacy at PGE, at the end of each year a school-wide book swap is held to help promote summer reading. The students will bring in gently used books to swap and in return receive new reading material to dive into over summer vacation.

PGE is also partnered with faith based organizations that also donates books to the school. Milstead said on average they are able to send between three to five books home with students for summer reading.

The parents or guardians also play a huge role in literacy and getting their children to pick up a book.

“Essentially, a child learns to read from the lap of an adult. If they just read with them every day, have conversations with them, that helps promote it. That’s something else that we really try to do, is put literature in homes where literature may not be present all the time and just picking up a book with your child for the sheer enjoyment of reading,” said Milstead.

But more than anything, Milstead said that PGE wants to make reading enjoyable and that they are always continuing to find new ways to think outside the box and make reading fun for all of their students.

Milstead
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By Kelly Duncan

kduncan@civitasmedia.com

Reach Kelly Duncan at 803-768-3123 ext. 1868 or on Twitter @TheNBOnews.