Trisha Vietti leads first day JSEL students at Molholm Elementary.
The first day of Jeffco Summer of Early Literacy (JSEL) got off to a great start as over 600 students in six Jeffco schools began their first day at the intensive six-week program. Community members and funders were invited to the first day kick-off event at the Molholm Elementary School site.
This is the third year of a five-year pilot project that is designed to provide intensive literacy instruction for struggling readers by offering a free summer school program at low-income neighborhood schools. The goal is to increase reading proficiency, get students to grade-level literacy benchmarks and prevent summer literacy loss. For the past 2 years, JSEL has only targeted K-3rd grade students. This year, literacy programming will also be provided for K-6th grade students at two sites.
JSEL students attend summer school for 3 hours every morning. Classroom instruction mirrors the literacy blocks that occur in classrooms during the school year. In addition, students and their parents can take advantage of free breakfast and lunch on site.
Nancy Westerhoff found her students eager to get started on the first day of JSEL.
Students will have hands-on activities and field trips to Wildlife Experience and Denver Aquarium. As incentives for attendance, community supporters have stepped forward with tickets to Bandimere Speedway and discounted tickets to the Colorado Rockies. Comcast has donated laptop computers and internet access at one family at each of the JSEL schools. JSEL is about learning through fun and novel activities and engaging parents in the process.
JSEL is a partnership with Mile High United Way and the Corporation for National and Community Service as part of the Colorado Social Innovation Fund, a portfolio of projects statewide seeking to increase reading proficiency among Colorado’s elementary schools students. Additional support is provided by Salazar Family Foundation, Target and Jeffco Public Schools.
For more information contact Anton Delgado at 303-982-2212 or adelgado@jeffco.k12.co.us
www.jeffcoschoolsfoundation.org
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