Kappa Delta Pi, Gannon University’s education honor society, recently participated and raised money for its Growing Readers project.
Last year, KDP presented its Growing Readers project to pregnant teens and teen parents in the Erie City School District, Chelsea Kulak, president of KDP, said.
“This project focuses on literacy for children starting as infants,” Kulak, a senior early childhood and special education major, said. “We discuss with the parents that it is important to start promoting literacy from day one because research shows that children who come to school with a strong language background tend to be more successful in school.”
Kappa Delta Pi members are given the opportunity to gain a wealth of both experience and leadership through events, workshops and volunteering Kayla Hardner, KDP vice president, said.
“With the opportunities Kappa Delta Pi is given, the members are able to broaden their horizons as educators,” Hardner, a senior early childhood and special education major, said.
KDP would like to see the project expand into counties near Erie, Robin Quick Ph.D., Kappa Delta Pi’s adviser said.
“We will continue presenting the workshops to teen parents on language and literacy,” Quick said. “We plan to create a second workshop that focuses on reading to teen parents who have toddlers at home.”
Each chapter of KDP must do some type of project to promote literacy, and the Phi Zeta’s chapter is “Literacy Alive,” Kulak said.
“Literacy Alive is KDP’s signature service initiative that invites members to create programs and events in their communities that bring empowering literacy skills to their participants,” Kulak said.
An event at Barnes & Noble that was held on Sept. 17 to raise money and awareness for the Growing Readers project.
At the event, three stations were available for children to participate in – a bookmaking station, a toddler station and story–time station.
Actors from the youth theater at Erie Playhouse – Brandon Hayes, Emily Tworek and Sydney Rudd – participated in reading stories to children and their parents.
During the event, examples were shown to teen parents on how to incorporate reading into everything they do at home cooking dinner, doing laundry and even driving.
Everyone that showed up at the event received a bag containing information about Growing Readers, two books that were geared more towards infants, a list of book ideas and information on the Erie County Public Library, Kulak said.
KDP raised $100 during the Barnes & Noble event that will go towards the Growing Readers project.
“Moving forward, we plan to present our presentation on infants,” Kulak said. “The presentation will include more literacy activities that are strictly for toddlers and will be presented sometime this semester.”
We are planning our annual education week during National Education Week, where we host professional development workshops for education majors to gain more knowledge on current topics in education, Kulak said.
Kulak will be attending Kappa Delta Pi’s national conference in Dallas, Texas with other members of KDP.
COLLEEN LANGHAM
