VINEMONT, Ala. – The students at Vinemont Middle School have new books in their school library to enjoy, thanks to two grants totaling close to $3,500 awarded to Librarian Danielle Partain.
Partain received a Dollar General Literacy Foundation grant and the Cullman Electric Cooperative Operation Round-Up Grant.
“The Dollar General grant was a process that I actually started last year, but then when COVID hit in March, it kind of delayed everything,” she said. “It was about literacy and about improving reading for students and it was to help me, besides getting books on levels that children can read to match their reading levels, it also allowed me to buy teacher resource books and items to help do one-on-one reading awareness with students. I do a lot of one-on-one activities with my students who struggle with reading.”
The Dollar General grant focuses on literacy and helping the struggling reader. This helped Partain purchase some special resources and activities for students with dyslexia or who struggle with reading.
“They (Dollar General) have always been great if it pertains to literacy,” she said, “because their big thing is helping a child to read and literacy.”
Of the Operation Round-Up Grant Partain said, “It was basically to help replace all the books that we were not able to receive back from COVID because a lot of books went home with children, but then getting them to bring them back to put back in inventory was a difficult task for us this year. Rather than stress over it, I wrote a grant to replace and add books.”
For school libraries, COVID has brought a new set of challenges as books can’t be sanitized in the same way other equipment can. The excitement of going to the library and searching the shelves and thumbing through the books in hopes of finding a great read can’t happen. Partain has been creative while trying to make sure her students are staying excited about reading.
She explained, “I go into the classroom a lot with the students. I go in and do a lot of lessons with them- Digital Citizenship lessons or just trying to promote reading, maybe tell them about a new book coming out. They like that.”
The kids are able to use their Chromebooks and see the books available in the library. The students then reserve books and Partain delivers the books to them. Now, when a student returns a book, the book must sit for a total of four days untouched to make sure it is safe for the next student.
“Their favorite way to pick out a book is to be able to look at the cover, look at the pictures, hold it and read the summary, but they can’t do that this year,” said Partain. “I give them the choice, since they can’t do that this year. If they get a book and they say, ‘I don’t know about this,’ I let them bring it back. I let them request a different book.” She said students really miss coming in the library.
Partain said some of the new books that are extremely popular among the middle school students are the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” “Big Nate” and “Harry Potter” series. She said the big things right now are graphic novels, which are written in a comic book style. Books such as “Stranger Things” and books about Greek mythology are in huge demand and written in the graphic novel style.
The “I Survived” series is another great reading choice. It is a hybrid between fiction and real historical events.
Said Partain, “This series, I have it two ways. One like a chapter book and one like a graphic novel. It takes historical events but then it turns into a fictional story set in that time period. They love that.”
Topics like the sinking of the Titanic and the Hindenburg disaster are included in the “I Survived” series.
“It’s hard to give one particular title because he has written several series,” Partain said, referencing one of her students’ favorite authors Rick Riordan. “This author, no matter what series it is, they want more!”
Partain was able to purchase more of the books her students really love with the grants and she said she is appreciative of the help.
“We really do appreciate Dollar General for giving teachers the opportunity to write grants about literacy. I am grateful because they are good to the schools and giving back to students. Then, of course, Operation Round-Up. I don’t know what we would do without them,” she smiled. “Through my years of teaching, I have received multiple grants from them from when I taught kindergarten to second grade to being elementary, middle school and high school librarian. They’ve been really good to us.”
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