Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Two Receive Cabe Grant

Jean Smithey, Title I reading teacher, and Jeff Alexander, principal at Cabe Middle School, have received a $2,000 grant from the Cabe Foundation for the 1999-2000 school year to meet the needs of students having trouble in their core subjects.

The grant provides the students with a snack each session. They are also able to earn field trips if they attend the sessions regularly and do their homework.

Tutorial sessions are held after school on Tuesdays. The school district provides for two teachers, Sheila Butler and Darrell Bearden, to tutor at that time. Butler, who has 15 students, tutors fifth and sixth graders. Bearden tutors the seventh and eighth graders. He also has 15 students.

The tutorial program has also expanded to meet the needs of seventh and eighth grade students in the accelerated reading program by the use of Literature Circles.

Alexander is the sponsor of Literature Circles.

Students are allowed to chose a book that they would like to read as a group. The group meets in the library after lunch. Alexander leads the students in a discussion over the pages they have read. He then assigns them pages to be read by the next meeting.

The group has finished its first book and there has been positive feedback concerning the students success.

Students were able to observe as Alexander took his accelerated reading test on the computer.

Next month a group of students who have attended the sessions faithfully and have endeavored to do their class work will be invited to attend a field trip to the bowling alley in Arkadelphia. For some of the students this will be their first time to try their hand at bowling.