New additions to the walking path at Ellijay’s River Park will help younger children sharpen both their reading skills and exercise routines.
A children’s storywalk recently installed along the riverside walking path features a storybook that unfolds page by page at various points along the pathway. Enlarged printed pages are enclosed in heavy-duty display markers, 20 of which have been put up along the trail over the past few months.
Normally, the literacy team for Gilmer schools would be planning a series of after-school events for parents and children to attend during the school year. Because of the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, that’s not the case this year, noted Lottie Mitchell, Gilmer schools chief academic officer.
“Since we can’t have so many literacy events, we are working to put books out in the community that our kids can still get to,” she added.
The storywalk is a way to do just that, Mitchell confirmed.
The project is funded by a $1.4 million federal grant the local school system received in 2018. The L4GA (or Literacy for Learning, Living, and Leading) Grants, were awarded to 38 Georgia school districts to improve early to late childhood literacy and language development.
Grant funds have already been for such projects as donating 250 books for different age groups to places and businesses in the community and putting book boxes on local school buses.
“The big focus is to put books into the community and into the hands of students,” Mitchell said.
“Part of this grant is to have community involvement to improve literacy in the entire community, from birth through high school. In the past, most literacy grants have been kindergarten through third grade. This is a little bit different in that you receive money for each grade band, birth-age 5, K-5th grade, 6th-8th and then high school. In order to serve the birth-5 population, this literacy committee was created to collaborate on ways to promote literacy to our youngest learners within our community.”
The birth-5 literacy committee includes representatives from local elementary schools and Head Start, as well as child care centers, literacy-boosting nonprofits like Kids Ferst and the Craddock Center, Gilmer Health Department and Department of Family and Children’s Services and others.
Gilmer Pre-K Director Katrina Kingsley, who leads that committee, said a retired local school teacher, Kathy Stephens, brought the idea for the storywalk to the committee’s attention after seeing one in another community.
“She shared it with us and we researched it. It started in Montpelier, Vt.,” said Kingsley. “It meets both things for the grant, the literacy (aspect) for our children and involving our community.”
Gilmer Parks and Recreation Director Kevan White said he was happy to partner with the school system to introduce the concept that pairs reading with physical fitness. The entire storywalk covers almost three-quarters of a mile, he noted. “They came to us with it, and I thought it would be a real good addition to the park, especially because the kids are able to get out and walk the walking trail and do the storywalk at the same time,” White said.
A new story will be posted on the walk every 4-6 weeks. The first one, currently on display, is Cat’s Colors, written and illustrated by Airlie Anderson.
The pages that can be read along the walk were printed by local business Twenty-Four Seven Promo, Mitchell noted.
“The (school) maintenance department also installed the frames along the trail beginning at the old tennis courts and ending at Noah’s Park. This grant takes maintenance, curriculum, community members and partners to work together for our kids and we love that about it,” she added.