Schools
Ossining Word Sleuths Help Decipher "Secret" Letter
District administrators dressed as detectives ask students to help decode the letter at the end of the students' "Word Detectives" unit.
Wearing Sherlock Holmes-style deerstalker hats and wielding oversized magnifying glasses, Super-Secret Detective 1 and Super-Secret Detective 2 struggle to read the contents of a “Top Secret!” envelope that spells out their next mission.
In the Ossining School District video skit, they peer at the paper and at each other through their hand glasses and repeat the word “Hmmm” as they think. Detective 2, aka Elementary Teaching and Learning Director Carrieann Sipos, says she is stumped.
“I can’t read it either,” says Detective 1, who is played by Superintendent Raymond Sanchez. “We definitely need some help.”
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They agree to get assistance from Brookside School first-graders, who recently completed the “Word Detectives” unit of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project curriculum. Through their study, the children had strengthened their decoding skills and added high-frequency words to their knowledge base.
The first-graders watched the funny video during an Assembly Nov. 26 and were excited to see the two “detectives” arrive at Brookside in person afterward. Dr. Sanchez and Ms. Sipos asked students to assist them in decoding the “top secret” letter they had received from Brookside Principal Ann Dealy. As Super-Secret Detective 1 struggled to read tricky words like “Brookside,” “badges” and “bring,” the children shouted out word-solving strategies they had learned, such as breaking long words into smaller parts and looking out for vowel teams.
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Dr. Dealy’s letter notified the detectives that the first-graders had earned their “word detective badges” and asked them to visit Brookside to celebrate their achievement. “I think the first-graders are officially Super-Secret Detectives too,” Dr. Dealy wrote. “Call on them whenever you need them.”
Dr. Sanchez and Ms. Sipos brought books with them to hand out to first-graders, as well as finger lights to help them in their word detecting work.
“The Ossining School District is committed to getting students excited about learning to read and becoming lifelong readers,” Ms. Sipos said. “Our ‘Word Detectives’ video and assembly were an entertaining way to engage first-graders in the reading curriculum, and for everyone to laugh and have fun in the process.”
