Woodhull PARP Program Wins Regional Honor

Woodhull Elementary School’s 2013 Parents as Reading Partners program has been chosen as the outstanding PARP program for the Suffolk region. The program, titled “Don’t Bug Me, I’m Reading,” ran during the month of March and featured a wide variety of educational activities all centered on fostering a love of reading in children. As the regional winner, Woodhull’s program will now be reviewed at the New York State PTA level for consideration for the New York State PTA PARP award, the winner of which will be announced before the organization’s convention in November. 

In a letter announcing this honor, Suffolk Region PTA Director Jacqueline Wilson and ARTS Chairman Cindy Cristman jointly commended the school’s PTA. “Your dedicated volunteers should be very proud of their efforts on behalf of literacy in the school,” they noted. “The resilience that your community displayed in the wake of the devastation on Fire Island due to the storm was nothing short of amazing. Your PTA program showcased a great deal of creativity and fun in helping the children to realize the importance of reading.”

Throughout the monthlong program, students and their families were encouraged to read together nightly and participate in the building’s scheduled daily activities and events, which included a book fair and treasure hunt at Barnes and Noble and a family fun night at Woodhull. Special guest readers also demonstrated how reading is a lifelong activity, and with the help of a cultural arts program, the school connected the literacy program to science, with students conducting hands-on experiments on different living arthropods. 

Info/photo courtesy of Syntax.