District News

Darcey Brooten's  “Super Siblings Reading Program” at Bedwell Elementary School is officially underway in the BES Media Center. Her  passion project was to create a substantial collection of bilingual board books, allowing her current students to access and check out preschool/toddler books in English/Spanish (in addition to their regular library books) to bring home to read with their younger siblings, cousins, or neighbors. To make this happen, she applied for a Somerset Hills Education Foundation grant in early December. During the winter season, Brooten, along with two other SHSD staff members, were awarded the monies for their respective projects. She worked with The Bookworm, a local bookstore in Bernardsville, as well as the vendor Follett, to curate lists and orders. With the last shipments arriving in early April, Brooten steadily processed, catalogued, and shelved all the titles to launch this May. 

Brooten's initiative encourages reading at home and also builds a relationship with library books for the SHSD students yet to come.  Since the books are bilingual, families (including multilingual families) are able to read them together.  It also empowers her current students to encourage literacy, and a love of reading and books, within their entire household! The Super Siblings Reading Program aims to build confidence for all involved – plus it’s just plain fun!