Ryan named reading teacher of the year

Palm Coast Observer
Neighbors

Belle Terre Elementary School Teacher Catherine Ryan was awarded Elementary Reading Teacher of the Year from the Florida Department of Education’s Just Read, Florida! Literacy Awards.

Ryan is the first teacher in Flagler County history to receive this honor.

“It’s absolutely amazing,” Ryan said. “It’s a huge acknowledgment.”

But Ryan said the award, which was based on student test scores for the past four years, is not as important to her as seeing her students succeed.

She said: “My greatest accomplishment in teaching is growing my kids and seeing how successful they are — taking kids in my class in August who truly can’t read and who struggle, and then teaching them all the strategies throughout the year and seeing them build confidence and read at grade level. The kids moving on is the greatest accomplishment in teaching. Moving those kids.”

Ryan’s classroom is technology-driven and research-based. One of her secret joys is data. Ryan said she stays on top of the latest brain-based research to further her knowledge of how children learn, in addition to finding the latest reading strategies.

In her nine years of teaching an inclusion class, a mix of regular-education and special-education students, Ryan has found that the most effective reading strategy is engaging students with the texts.

“Whether it’s underlining, text coding, or Post-it notes, as long as they are engaged in the text, they are understanding and comprehending,” Ryan said.

CLASS NOTES
+ Flagler County Elections aid FPC homecoming voters
Deputy Supervisor Kaiti Lenhart, of the Flagler County Elections office, helped the Flagler Palm Coast High School Student Government bring homecoming court elections into the 21st century with online voting.

Students checked into the voting site with their student IDs, and each was given a voter registration number, which was used to access the online ballot. More than 700 students were able to vote during the three 30-minute lunch periods, and the results were available within minutes of the polls closing.

The FPC 2011 Homecoming Court is as follows: freshman prince and princess, Antonio Aybar and Darien Halliday; sophomore prince and princess, Marcus Polite and Mckenzie Bowles; junior prince and princess, Josh Greiner and Jessie Marolf; queen candidates, Sara Bell, Ashley Bock, Maly Crespo, Margaret Cruz, Tiera Jackson, Kelly Kryspin, Domonique Lee, Cortney Macha, Summer Musgrove and Carolyne Vasconcellos; king candidates, Wes Adams, Jayd Capela, Nick Cardona, Robert Lewis, Alonzo “Lonnie” Meade, Kenny Pedroza, Ryan Ragsdale, Gabriel Rodriguez, Brandon Wolf and Semaj Worthy.

Faculty court candidates are as follows: duchess, Missy Bossardet, Kathy Picano, Sharon Roberts, Marlyn Tangney and Susan Walker; duke, Bobby Bossardet, Caesar Campana, Phil DeAugustino, John Seth and Roger Tangney.

King and queen will be announced during half time at the Oct. 7 homecoming game. Duke and duchess will be announced at the Oct. 3 powder-puff game.

+ High-school students offer to tutor peers in science
A group of advanced-placement biology students at Flagler Palm Coast High School will be offering tutoring to fellow high-school students through online and face-to-face sessions.

Some of the core subjects examined in these tutoring sessions will be formulating questions, summarizing data, organization and development of living organisms and interdependence.

“Students do better when they have student tutors,” said Boyd Fulmer, project chairman.

The group will host its first face-to-face tutoring session open to FPC students after school Oct. 6, in Heidi Alves’ room. Matanzas students can participate online.