Dear Parents, Staff, Students and Community Members,

The focus of this month's CloseUp is literacy. We were asked to provide the name of our favorite children's book. I think we all had a problem choosing just one. Though I picked "Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel", there were so many more possibilities. I loved the story of "Johnnycake", the runaway pancake. "Trixie Belden" and "Nancy Drew" were my favorite girl detective series. And I loved comic books: Superman, Archie and Veronica, Little Dot, the "intellectual" Classic Comics. Share memories of your favorite books and stories with your children, and have them share their favorites with you. Reading is great entertainment, whether it is done with a hardcover book, a paperback, a comic, a Kindle, or a tablet.

Toby Sorensen, Chairman

City of Fairfax School Board

There's a lot of reading going on at Daniel's Run Elementary!

Students from Gordon Brown's ESOL Level 2 classes at Fairfax High School are reading and sharing comprehension activities with Daniels Run Elementary students in Amanda Fecik's Kindergarten class and Jackie Woolsey's 1st grade class.

Mr. Brown and Fairfax High School librarian Anne Nolan initiated the Reading Buddies program last year in collaboration with Ms. Fecik, Daniels Run librarian Robin Matthews, Daniels Run resource center coordinator Richelle Brown, and Fairfax High School ESOL teacher Lisa Balogh.

The ESOL2 students walk to Daniels Run with Ms. Nolan and Mr. Brown once per month during a 90-minute intervention block and spend about 50 minutes reading and doing sequencing and other comprehension activities with Ms. Fecik's class as part of the Kindergartener's language arts lesson.

To work with Ms. Woolsey's class, a group of ESOL 2 and 3 students volunteer once or twice each month after school to read to the 1st graders during their math lesson. The students make math connections with the stories, such as locating patterns in the stories or identifying sets and subsets to reinforce their understanding of fractions.

Mr. Brown's students prepare for their visits by rehearsing the books with each other. The repetition helps to build their reading fluency. Ms. Nolan and Ms. Mathews, the librarians, select books that fit into the lessons Ms. Fecik and Ms. Woolsey are working on with their students.

The visits bring great joy to all participants, including the librarians and teachers. As Ms. Fecik states, "The children are excited every time they hear that their high school reading buddies are coming!  The Kindergarteners build relationships with the high school buddies and enjoy the reading of the stories and activities that follow."  The teachers walk around and hear every group of students, even the usually quiet ones, talking about what happened in their book and making connections with the book.

As Ms. Woolsey stated, she was amazed to see one of her more reticent students smiling and intently reading and coloring with his big buddy. "He's truly engaged in the work with his buddy. You can see he enjoys it and wants to participate. He really comse out of his shell during this time period he has with his buddy." Similarly, Mr. Brown has seen his students grow in confidence and build connections with peers and with their younger Reading Buddies. In fact, students who had moved on to ESOL Level 3 this year were the inspiration behind expanding the program to work with Ms. Woolsey's class. They helped to grow the Reading Buddies program! 

Fairfax Firefighters Provide Coats for Underprivileged Children; Fairfax Connection January, 2015 

2/16 President's Day Holiday 

2/23 School Board Work Session - 7:30 FHS

2/28 Fairfax Softball Presents Comedy Night (21 and Over) Buy tickets here.