Beaumont, Tx. Principal Reads Bedtime Stories on Computer
(CNN)It's a Tuesday night in Beaumont, Texas, and elementary school main Belinda George is wearing a onesie with a unicorn caput.
She sits in front end of her home's cozy fireplace, goes live on her iPhone and begins reading a bedtime story.
Her "scholars," equally she calls them, take tuned in live for "Tucked-in Tuesdays," in which their principal's acted-out bedtime stories get streamed straight to their parents' phones and computers.
Tonight, George is reading "Howie has a Stomachache" - about a pig with a problem.
"Tin can you imagine being a squealer with a stomachache? That's gotta be the worst," the 42-twelvemonth-old chief ad libs between reading to the kids of Homer Drive Elementary.
George has been doing this every Tuesday night since Dec because she wants to raise her school'southward depression reading scores.
Last yr, simply 47% of her third grade, and threescore% of her quaternary grade course passed the land-mandated reading exam. This is her showtime schoolhouse year as principal and she hopes to turn those numbers around.
She gives shout-outs
Then, she reads stories.
One night, George wore a Cookie Monster onesie. Another, she wore one covered with pink hearts.
She gives shout-outs to each child as they log-in to watch.
"They'll ask questions while I'm reading. They're responsive. They'll blazon in questions or put distressing or happy faces," she told CNN.
"Beingness familiar with their reading tin can make a connection. I attempt to cover different interests. If kids can't relate, they don't read.
"They watch me read with emotion and make the volume come alive. That'south my thing. Making them experience whatsoever the book is trying to brand you feel."
And the pajamas don't hurt.
"Information technology'south a matter of but relating to the kids. It's just a conversation piece. 'I like your pajamas,' the kids say. They want to tune in to run into what I'm wearing."
The kids get "accelerated reading" points every time they read a book - part of a national program.
Students who tune in to the live reading are also eligible for accelerated reading points if they take a corresponding quiz.
George gives the winner a limo ride. Second place gets to hang out with the principal for the day. She's very popular, so information technology's a real motivator.
Her father didn't know how to read
George picked up her dearest for reading in Louisiana from her school librarian who would read to the children on a rocking chair in front of a large Winnie the Pooh scene -- "the whole 100 acres made of felt."
She would act out the characters with zest but like Main George.
George grew up with five sisters in a three-sleeping room trailer.
"The pecking order of the chamber state of affairs varied," she laughed.
Her father dropped out of schoolhouse when he was in the fifth grade and never learned to read. Her mother left school in eleventh form.
"My parents were extremely smart people so I didn't realize my dad couldn't read until I was much older," said George.
Information technology's having an upshot
Fifth-grader Trevor Greenish never liked to read books - until he started tuning in, his grandmother and guardian told CNN.
"Information technology'south something that keeps them off of the video games, and YouTube-- I think it was a smashing thought," said Tiffany Savoy.
Now, his grandmother says, Trevor goes to the library every week to check out at least a couple of books. He peculiarly likes nonfiction, similar the book, "Why Do Animals Hide?"
George read information technology on a recent Tucked-In Tuesday and brought a prop, her pet turtle Frannie.
"She was hiding in her shell at first. So she was just climbing on my pj's," George said. "I estimate she knew she was getting her fifteen minutes of fame."
Information technology forms a relationship
George does not have children. She considers her scholars her family unit and wants the kids to be successful in life.
"When children know you truly intendance and that you're willing to go above and beyond, they'll become above and across to the best of their ability."
George says reading can be difficult for some of the kids. And so, they choose not to.
Merely getting them to listen to somebody read acts every bit a form of modeling: to become them to read, she says.
And so far, she says, information technology seems to be working.
"It's catching on like wild fire. Kids are starting to read more and building their conviction," George says. "Kids who haven't read out loud in class are starting to enhance their hands."
More kids are asking to take reading quizzes for points, she says. And come April and May, when the kids take the state reading test once again, she'due south hoping to see the scores go up.
The sessions teach life lessons
On another Tuesday nighttime, Principal George reads "Ladybug Girl" to the kids as she cradles a ladybug pillow equally a prop.
The volume has a huge life lesson she says-- simply similar all the books she reads them.
"Ladybug girl'due south brother told her she was also minor for stuff," she said.
Then she asked the kids: "Has anyone e'er told you, you lot were too small for something? My big sister told me I was too pocket-sized for stuff. Just I did information technology anyway."
Today she'due south conveying out that life lesson - one onesie and thriving scholar at a time.
Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/03/07/us/iyw-principal-streams-bedtime-stories-trnd/index.html
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