Lakewood Ranch students ready for "Kiddie Lit"

Domynic Newby – LRHS News

(LAKEWOOD RANCH, FL) – Lakewood Ranch High School Mustangs are gearing up for “Winnie the Pooh and Shakespeare Too.” The program is the LRHS exit project that all seniors, except those in Advanced Placement (AP) classes, must complete to graduate.

According to English IV College Prep teacher Candice Delazzer, “It is a two-part project: the first part is a documented paper on literacy and its importance, the second is creating an original children’s book.”

For the research paper, students are required to research the importance of young children reading and why it is important for parents to enforce reading, the purpose of children’s’ books and the lessons that the author intends to teach.

Delazzer continued, “After the research paper is completed, seniors must work with a partner to write, illustrate and publish a children’s book, along with creating three learning activities to reinforce the skills and lessons that their book teaches.”

On May 13, seniors who have completed the project will travel to William H. Bashaw Elementary School to spend the morning reading to the children and following up with their learning activities.

“We wanted students to have a project that combines all the lessons that they have learned throughout their high school language arts classes about literature,” Delazzer said. “The ultimate purpose, however, is to impress upon the seniors that literacy is important so that when they become parents, they will read to their children and encourage them to learn to read at an early age. We also want to impress upon the elementary students that literacy and reading is important not just when they are young, but as they age also.” she continued.

Delazzer said the project benefits both the high school and the elementary students.

“I believe it benefits the seniors by reinforcing the idea that they can be good reading role models for younger students or their siblings,” she said. “It also gives them a great feeling of accomplishment to complete their paper and children’s book, then get the positive feedback from the elementary students whom they read to. It definitely benefits the elementary students by reinforcing the skills and lessons they are currently learning in their regular classroom and by showing them that even older students are involved and interested in reading.”

LRHS has been engaging “Winnie the Pooh and Shakespeare Too” since 2000, which was when Delazzer first came to the school.

“The project is much older, however,” Delazzer said. “The ‘Winnie the Pooh and Shakespeare Too’ literacy program began in 1992 when Southeast senior English teacher Frank Anderson and his wife Andy, a kindergarten teacher at Bashaw Elementary, sought a way to bring both groups of students together to support literacy and celebrate reading.

“The program has since evolved to incorporate not just the kindergarten classes, but include first through fifth grade classes as well. Seniors research the core skills and concepts that are covered during the third and fourth quarter in a particular grade level then try to embed those skills and concepts as lessons in their children’s books. ”