LAKE MILLS, Iowa – The Lake Mills Community School is investing resources in programs that focus on early reading skills, and teachers and administrators at the school have found a lot of support within the community for the work they do.

Thursday, January 10, 2002

LAKE MILLS, Iowa – The Lake Mills Community School is investing resources in programs that focus on early reading skills, and teachers and administrators at the school have found a lot of support within the community for the work they do.

One important part of that support is raising money to pay for many of the materials that the school district’s reading and literacy programs need. Many organizations have contributed or helped out with fund raisers for the Elementary Literacy Program in particular, including the Lake Mills Lions Club and the local historical society.

The next-fund raising event will be at the school on Friday, Jan 11, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., sponsored by the Lake Mills Office of Manufacturers Bank and Trust. Proceeds from this event will be shared by the literacy program and the Lake Mills Ministerial Association.

The funds are used to supplement district funding, and go toward the purchase of books for elementary students to use in school and to take home to read with their parents.

Instead of a reading program that makes use of the same sets of textbooks for several years in a row, the Lake Mills elementary curriculum uses a more individualized method, said Cindy Witt, elementary principal.

&uot;Our instruction is more individualized, with graduated readers for students at different levels, and this means we need a steady supply of books on an ongoing basis,&uot; said Witt. Especially important is finding books that are interesting to read for children. The extra funds provided from the community help do that, she said.

The extra funds also helped provide a new cupboard to store the materials. The cupboard is more convenient for teachers than trying to keep everything at the school’s media center, said Witt.

The Elementary Literacy Program is only one part of an overall effort at improving reading skills in the Lake Mills school district. Besides other school-based programs, the school also has a &uot;Books for Baby&uot; program which provides an Eric Carle board book for each new baby in the district.

Donations for other literacy programs at the school have also come from community businesses, including the co-sponsors of the Books for Baby program, Winnebago Cooperative Telephone Association, Larson’s Manufacturing, Wilkinson Tool and Die and Dave’s 66. FleetGuard Nelson of Lake Mills has also made contributions toward literacy programs at the school.

&uot;We are so appreciative of the ongoing community support. All of this would have been a lot more difficult without it,&uot; said Witt.