SPRING 2025 GRANT RECIPIENTS

Ameriki Somers is the School Library Media Coordinator at Lowrance Middle School. She plans to use the grant to create a mobile multi-sensory library to provide a more engaging reading experience for special needs students. Including items such as touch and feel board books, scratch and sniff books, books with braille, high contrast books, and pop-up books helps with cognitive and communication development. As Somers said, “Ultimately, this investment in specialized reading materials will not only enhance literacy skills but also contribute to the overall cognitive, social, and emotional development of our special needs students, setting the foundation for improved educational outcomes across all areas of their academic journey.”

FALL 2024 GRANT RECIPIENTS

LaDonna Wilson, an EC (Exceptional Children)/Functional Curriculum Support teacher at Cash Elementary, plans to use her grant to create ten literacy experience baskets to enhance reading and writing instruction for her students. These baskets will include books, character representations, scene supports, and interactive games to motivate and improve fluency. By involving Cash Buddy Club members (typically peers), these literacy buddies will engage in weekly activities with the students using the baskets, fostering both learning and social connection.

Jennifer Jones from Cash Elementary is a Multi-Classroom Leader. She plans to use the grant to purchase social-emotional learning books for her school’s innovative reading lab for first and second grade students. The lab follows a “small for all” approach, offering tailored small-group instruction to meet the needs of every student. These books will enrich daily focused read-aloud sessions by not only promoting literacy but also helping children explore their emotions, fostering mental health, and building vital social-emotional skills.

Sarah Bradley (teacher of visually impaired students) and Connie Brake (Assistive Technology Specialist) from Itinerant and Related Services with the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School system will use their grant to establish a library of story bags/boxes designed for students with unique and complex needs. These resources employ a multisensory approach, incorporating real objects alongside words to create an engaging and inclusive reading experience. By allowing students to feel, manipulate, and interact with these objects, the boxes help visually impaired students, as well as those who are deaf or have multiple disabilities, better understand stories and connect them to their own experiences.

Lori Booze, a teacher at Petree Elementary School, plans to use the grant for noise-cancelling headphones to create a more focused and effective learning environment for her students. The headphones will reduce distractions and ambient noise, helping students concentrate on online work, daily tasks, and testing. This initiative is expected to enhance cognitive benefits like improved focus, reduced stress, and better overall performance.

Brenda Coles from Brunson Elementary School is a fifth grade teacher. She plans to use her grant for flexible seating to enrich her students’ daily learning experiences. By introducing adaptable seating options, she aims to boost engagement and comfort in the classroom environment. Additionally, this seating will play a pivotal role in the “book buddies” program, encouraging collaboration across different grade levels and fostering a strong school-wide culture centered around reading.

Spring 2024 Grant Recipients

Meet the winners of the JLWS Literacy & Education Equity Fund Grant and learn how their projects are making a difference in our community.

Madelyn Hughes, the media coordinator at Cook Literacy Model School, will be using her grant to purchase a large felt/white board and accessories to work with Pre-K – 1st graders and her 4th grade students. Felt boards are a great visual and tactile aid for stories that involve a lot of sequencing. The white board side will help her 4th grade readers “chunk” words into their syllables in order to sound them out.

Gina Weymouth from Petree Elementary School is an EC (Exceptional Children) teacher. She will be using her grant to purchase a wonderful set of adapted books to use with her non-verbal students specifically. Her students need adapted books for visual support, limited words on the page and items that can be moved on the page. This helps my students actively follow along with the story. JLWS members have been invited to come read with the students!

Corie Maffett is a multi-grade math teacher at East Forsyth Middle School. Her grant will support the purchase of a fun kit of math games to help teach her students math and problem solving skills. Most of her students are connected digitally, but board games require working collaboratively with others, following directions (literacy component), and higher order thinking and problem solving skills. Fun Fact: She is the mother of one of our members, Kelsie Gibson!

Amy Talley, from Jefferson Elementary School, is an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher. She will use her grant to purchase bilingual and Spanish books to create a small lending library for her students. These books will include high-interest titles, non-fiction titles that align with NC curricula, and bilingual books to get families involved with reading and learning English at home.

Erin Harp is a 3rd/4th grade teacher from Lewisville Elementary. She will be using her grant money to purchase an interesting collection of books that focus on myths and stories from around the world for her academically gifted students. She will use these to compare and contrast the use of similar themes and patterns of events in stories, myths, and literature from different cultures.

Fall 2023 Grant Recipients

Kathryn Gehrs, a kindergarten teacher at Kimberley Park Elementary, will be hosting a “Books, Buddies & Blankets” day with the kindergarten students. Students will get to choose a new book from Bookmarks at a “special book fair”, they will get a new blanket and a stuffed animal reading buddy, and have a special cozy reading time in the gym. Our BookWORM committee will be donating books for the students to choose from and “gift” to children at Brenner Children’s Hospital – a great service component for the students!

Kristina Steveson, an art teacher at Smith Farm Elementary, will be using her grant for art materials to implement literacy instruction into visual arts lesson plans, which she learned from attending NC Center for the Advancement of Teaching’s weeklong professional development training “Literacy for K-5 Specialists” in January 2023. Our members will hopefully be judging the works of art in a little contest!