05/26/2006
Sophomore sets her Capstone on literacy
By: Jessica Selby , Daily Times

Coventry High School students are now being required to complete Capstone projects prior to graduation.

This gives them the opportunity to take a topic that interests them and develop it into an extensive project. The topic is up to the student, as is the amount of time they invest and what they get out of the project.

Kayla Tucker, a sophomore at CHS, applied for and received a grant from the National Education Association to develop her idea for a Capstone project. After submitting a lengthy application and receiving word that she was accepted, Tucker took the $500 she secured from the NEA and created several events to promote literacy.

"I've always been interested in literacy and reading children's books, so I figured this would be a good topic for me to do for my Capstone project," said Tucker.
Every week for seven weeks, Tucker planned one event around the topic of literacy. The first week she coordinated a book fair through Waldenbooks store and invited two local authors to attend. One of the authors was Hannah Goodman, who wrote "My Sister's Wedding."

The next week, Tucker and her entire child development class, taught by Kathy Hudson, took a trip to Blackrock Elementary School. There, they visited with and read to the first grade students in Mrs. Bishop's class. They read the book "March of the Penguins" and later had the students participate in penguin activities like penguin puppet making and penguin races.

One of the final activities that Tucker coordinated was the incorporation of Asian-themed reading into the classroom. She used a portion of the funds she secured through the grant to purchase Kamishibai and Manga Books.

Kamishibai books are large sheets of non-flimsy paper that have pictures on the front and words on the back so that, when someone reads the book to a classroom filled with kids, they can, Tucker explained, simply hold one of the pages up and comfortably read from the back of the picture.

"I think the format is great," Tucker said. "It is much more convenient and comfortable to read this way. I can't believe that no one else had ever thought of this before."
The Manga books, Japanese-style comic books, that Tucker purchased she allowed CHS teachers to use in their classrooms. The feedback she received from both teachers and students, she said, was very positive.

After several weeks of developing her project, coordinating and then holding the events, Tucker is now nearing the final stages. The only thing she has left to do is compile all of her documentation, photographs, and information into a journal format and present it to a panel of judges. The thought of presenting, Tucker said, is very intimidating but a task she knows she will ultimately have to do.

"Even though I am really nervous about presenting, I feel good about the way my project turned out," Tucker said. "All of the events went really well and I am glad that I was able to get the grant money to help me make my project better. It really made a difference."

NEA gives thousands of dollars in grant money to youth leaders for literacy type projects annually, according to Staci Maiers, spokesperson for the organization. This year, the organization awarded 20 different grants totaling $10,000.