PARP makes reading fun for Bluebirds

Blind Brook PTA brings back program to encourage literacy at Ridge Street School

March 14, 2024 at 2:09 a.m.

Port Chester-Rye-Rye Brook EMS Administrator Kenny Barton sits in the rocking chair of honor during his reading of “Jed’s Junior Space Patrol” in front of Karen Johnson’s class of kindergarteners on Friday, Mar. 8. He was one of the dozen guest readers invited to Ridge Street Elementary School as part of PARP Week, a PTA-sponsored event that aims to make reading fun for young students. (David Tapia/Westmore News)

Julie Ciamei’s class of Ridge Street School third-graders sat on a rainbow-patterned carpet as they listened to County Legislator Nancy Barr read “The Masterpiece” by Jay Miletsky. Periodically, she would stop and ask questions about what kind of paintings they’ve seen and where they thought the story would go.

   County Legislator Nancy Barr, a Rye Brook resident, reads “The Masterpiece” by Jay Miletsky to Alessandra Herrera and the rest of her classmates in Julie Ciamei’s third-grade class. Barr laughed as she told students that her son, Zachary, had Ciamei as his third-grade teacher 20 years ago.
 By David Tapia   

With each question, a new student would answer enthusiastically, with multiple hands darting up to give Barr plenty to choose from.

She, and others, were at the school as part of a returning literacy program that’s been out of the district for at least 10 years.

The Blind Brook School District has been making a concerted effort to encourage reading at the lower grade levels.

To contribute to those efforts, members of the PTA volunteered to reintroduce the Pick a Reading Partner (PARP) to Ridge Street Elementary School. “It used to be in the district quite some time ago, one of the current parents told me she did it while she was in elementary school here,” Blind Brook Board of Education member Katherine Hallissy Ayala said. “I can’t say it was never here, but there’s been a gap.”

Broadly, PARP has been around for 46 years, developed by State Senator James Donovan and adopted by the State PTA. It calls for children to be read to by a partner, which could be a parent, babysitter, sibling or more, for at least 20 minutes per day.

According to Ayala, there’s been interest in PARP since last school year.

“The PTA’s SEID (Supporting Every Individual Difference) initiated interest and partnered with the PTA to implement the program,” she wrote in a text after the event. The discussion began during the 2022-23 school year, culminating in a PARP committee being formed.

“By the fall, we put our team together and brainstormed our theme and events,” the trustee said. The group consists of Ayala, Hillary Seif, Tara Rosenblum and Monica Malzyner.

Together, they planned a week-long program. “Some programs run for two weeks or a month,” she said. “But since this is our first time, we elected to do a week.”

 Bianco Ciardullo, a kindergartener in Karen Johnson’s class, listens attentively from the rear of the room to Kenny Barton as he reads “Jed’s Junior Space Patrol” by Jean Marzollo. The titular character of the novel is named after Barton’s childhood best friend, as he grew up with Marzollo’s son.
 By David Tapia 

The event, which was funded by the PTA, formally began on Mar. 1 and continued with several children’s book authors being invited to speak at the school throughout the next week. Children celebrated by decorating the halls with handmade signs of the settings their favorite novels had transported them to like Mount Olympus, Hogwarts or Florida.

To encourage giving literature new homes, and to diversify what they were reading, students were encouraged to swap books with one another once they were finished with them. Every day, they were asked to read for at least 20 minutes at home with a partner.

The week culminated in a guest reading day largely featuring folks from the community, where a dozen people from various fields were invited to read aloud to the students to show them that literature can transport them anywhere.

Port Chester-Rye-Rye Brook EMS Administrator Kenny Barton read “Jed’s Junior Space Patrol” by Jean Marzollo, for example, while Chris “Coach” Rodriguez read “If I were President” by Catherine Stier.

As the event was going on, Ayala was already looking to what next year’s PARP activities could look like.

“We’d like to expand it to two weeks next year, but we’d need more volunteers,” she said. “I’d like to do some things outside of school. We could have kids and parents come in and read together in the library or have some kind of book-related performance. Our goal is to build enthusiasm for literacy.”

    A Port Chester native and radio host on 107.1 The Peak, Chris “Coach” Rodriguez quizzes Kristie Fon’s third-grade class on the requirements to become the Commander in Chief in the middle of his reading of “If I Were President” by Catherine Stier.
 By David Tapia