Community

DOE secretary visits Centre Hall Elementary; hears about Random Acts of Reading

CENTRE HALL -- Since the initial unveiling of the project in February of this year, Random Acts of Reading has been making strides in encouraging literacy throughout the Commonwealth and beyond -- including in Centre County.

At Centre Hall Elementary School, the initial kick-off event had been a huge success with students, and only continues to grow in popularity. This innovative literacy program features a book vending machine full of diverse and inclusive books.

Kids earn tokens for positive behavior, by achieving learning goals, being student of the month or however the school chooses. These tokens can then be used to redeem a book from the school's book vending machine.

The program wasn't just a huge hit with students. Schools from all over have been intrigued by the concept.

Penny Eifrig, the individual behind this organization, was pleased that the program has been such a success at the elementary school and that word has gotten out about her program.

"Numerous other schools have inquired about the program (since the initial launch)," said Eifrig. "I'm collaborating with Reading is Fundamental as well. When we print books for our machines we'll be printing books for them as well. It will help us get more of our books out to more kids. There's more publishers joining as well -- everyone I've spoken to and asked if they wanted to be part of this, they've said yes. I'm so excited."

"I love that everyone seems to see the value of this. Getting stories from the bottom up rather than dictated from the top down. Getting good books for kids where they feel represented is the key element. Having books at home is huge, too -- to have a book that is yours is important," said Eifrig.

Executive Deputy Secretary Angela Fitterer from the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) visited Centre Hall to see the machine in action and learn more about the program from officials and the students themselves.

Principal David Romanyshyn introduced Fitterer to the students and explained why she came to visit.

"(Fitterer) and the Department of Education were looking for some cool things that schools in Pennsylvania were doing, and they came across our book vending machine in the newspaper and thought it was really cool," Romanyshyn said. "She wanted to see that for herself and meet (our students.)"

Romanyshyn strolled through the crowd of students during Fitterer's visit to find one who could explain the program to their guest.

Second grade student Maya from the crowd gave an excellent rundown of what Fitterer can expect, describing the process.

"You can earn a golden token to put into the machine by being a good role model, getting the principal lunch or being student of the month in your class," Maya said. "There's paper tickets inside some books and you can pick whatever book you want. If there's a ticket inside it has a special reward like ice cream treats, show and tell, principal's chair -- and the golden ticket every year."

Romanyshyn offered Fitterer a golden token of her very own so that she could choose a book out of the machine to read to the children.

The chosen book was "Aliana Reaches for the Moon" by Laura Roettiger, a "STEAM book for aspiring scientists," which follows a little girl named Aliana, who hopes to become a scientist and creates a birthday present for her brother, Gustavo.

"I really love reading," said Fitterer, telling the children how excited she was to read to them. "There's a lot of great books in here!"

Thanks to Maya, Fitterer was prepared to maybe find a special prize inside the book -- perhaps a ticket to have an ice cream party, or to have lunch with the principal.

What no one was prepared for, however, was for a SECOND Golden Ticket to be found.

The students went absolutely crazy over the discovery, cheering loudly from their seats -- some even got up and jumped around.

The school has already had one author visit them virtually, Sara Sadik, author of the book "The Extraordinary Pause," joined Centre Hall Elementary from her home in Dubai in March after one student pulled the golden ticket.

During this "meet the author" event, students zoomed in from their classroom with their teacher and were able to ask Sadik questions. The students all had insightful questions to ask at the time, and learned a lot about Dubai and Sadik.

Fitterer read the book aloud to the students, going through the story of Aliana and doing her best to show the beautiful illustrations to the audience. Afterwards, there was a brief Q&A session with the students.

As was the case with the author visit, the students asked incredibly thoughtful questions about Fitterer's job, life and what she enjoys doing in her free time. A few questions were:

Q: Which character from the book did you act most like when you were a kid?

A: Probably Aliana. I'm a big sister so I was used to having a little sister follow me around. I also liked going outside and doing things.

Q: What was your first job? What did you start out doing before you did this kind of stuff?

A: My first job -- I babysat a little in high school. But my first job that I got a real, regular paycheck for was being a lifeguard. It's a great summer job if you like swimming and you like people.

Q: What is your favorite thing to do?

A: Right now it's to walk my dog. I have a dog named Jane Jetson and we walk in the mornings and at night.

Q: How many kindergarteners have you ever seen?

A: My kids went to an elementary school where they had about 300 kids in their class.

Q: What is your favorite book to read that you've ever read?

A: I think I have to say Harry Potter (She's a Gryffindor).

Two students were chosen to speak with Fitterer, Sylvan Wise and Kylie Mothersbaugh.

Both of them have been exemplary students, each having earned enough Rams Stars (75) to get a book from the machine. Wise got a token for being student of the month in his classroom as well.

Mothersbaugh was excited to chat about her book she got from the machine, summarizing it well, "it was a little golden retriever book about how the dog got adopted and how she was saved from the shelter."

Wise was actually able to get two books from the machine since it's installation in February, "The first book I got was 'The Thief, The Witch and the Shop of Curiosities' and the second was 'Who was Hellen Keller.'"

"The vending machine is an amazing thing to have," said Fitterer, "Encouraging kids to read but also the STEM focus -- just knowing how important that is especially at a young age, it's great to see this at the elementary school."

Additional information about this program can be found at www.randomactsofreading.org.