Reading
Reading for Remembrance

A Holocaust awareness project teaches students that reading can set you free.

Media Specialist Katherine Bassett's project honors Holocaust victims.

Anne Frank's poignant diary puts a human face to the horrors of the Holocaust. A very special Read Across America project in New Jersey has deepened students' understanding of that reality by connecting to those tragic events one person at a time.

"When you tell children that 6 million people perished in the Holocaust, they have no concept of what that number means," says Katherine Bassett, a library media specialist who helped create the "Reading Sets You Free" project at Ocean City Intermediate School.

So, a few years ago, Bassett logged on and contacted Yad Vashem, an organization in Israel committed to preserving memories of the Holocaust and bringing the lessons of the Holocaust home. Within two days, Bassett was supplied with a listing of more than 600 names, ages, places of birth and death, and other information about Holocaust victims and survivors.

Using the names, students made business-sized cards adorned with butterflies, an international symbol of Holocaust remembrance. Fourth and fifth graders were given cards representing Holocaust survivors, while sixth through eighth graders were given names of victims as well.

"On Read Across America Day 1999, we began reading our way around the building in honor of the person named on our card," says Bassett. "Every time we read a book, we filled out a paper butterfly with the title read, our name, and the name of the person we read in honor of."

The reading project caught the imagination of the entire school, continuing until National Library Day in mid-April. Art and science teachers helped students make huge wooden butterflies painted with scientific accuracy. Language arts teachers focused on Holocaust-based novels, such as Forging Freedom by Hudson Talbott while social studies teachers taught on that era. Math teachers helped students compute price comparisons between the 1940s and today.

In the end, participants had read more than 1,600 books, and students were graced with a visit from Hannah Pick, childhood friend of Anne Frank and a survivor whose name had appeared on a card.

"She spoke for over an hour, and you could have heard a feather fall on the floor," recalls Bassett. "Students were enthralled. It was a wonderful history lesson for all."

For more: E-mail Katherine Bassett at read12me@aol.com or visit www.Yadvashem.org.

How To ...
Increase Reading Skills Through Recorded Books

"Of all the things I did in my classroom, audiobooks made the single biggest difference in increasing reading ability in my students," says Janet Allen, author of Yellow Brick Roads: Shared and Guided Paths to Independent Reading 4-12 (Stenhouse). Audiobooks, says Allen, bridge the gap between adolescent reading vocabulary and listening vocabulary, which is actually higher for struggling readers.

How can you increase reading comprehension with recorded books? Just listen:

• Let students use audiobooks during sustained reading time. Allow them to read along with the written text at their interest level.

• Content teachers can use recorded books to help struggling readers with research. Even works of fiction can give students background knowledge. For example, an audiotape of Christopher Paul Curtis's The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963 can teach about the Alabama bombings and civil rights.

• Stock your media center with audiobooks that reflect core literature, so students can listen and follow along. Just hearing helps understanding more than reading silently, because there's another layer of meaning that comes from the voice. Even advanced placement students can benefit.

• Many recorded books are available at two speeds. The slower speed is perfect for students just learning English. Such tapes let students absorb the language without being monotonous.

• Make audiobooks and their companion texts a part of your in-school suspension program. Students can read an entire novel each day they spend there.

  "Audio-books replicate that shared reading experience that younger students get from read-aloud time," says Allen. "They can take older students back to the early stages of reading engagement, which many did not have."

For more: E-mail Janet Allen at jallen3219@aol.com or visit www.stenhouse.com.