For the second year, the Rotary Club of Blanco County is supporting the Partners Assisting Literary Success (PALS) program, an initiative for Kindergarten through second grade students needing assistance with their reading skills, at the Blanco Elementary School.
The Rotary Club has provided the PALS program $1,000 for purchase of Chromebooks/tablets for the students participating in the PALS program. According to Mrs. Ales Mann, the first grade teacher responsible for the program: “By incorporating current technology standards into our PALS literacy program, we will be tapping into a major resource that will benefit the students being serviced by PALS. The Tablets will allow PALS volunteers to utilize apps that support the Specific needs of each Specific child.
“For example through the various apps available we can add phonemic awareness, phonifcs, writing, and comprehension work to the already stellar reading activities that our PALS volunteers offer our students.”
This year, over 20 adult volunteers from the Rotary Club of Blanco County and other interested parents are the “PALS” in this reading intervention program. They spend one to two hours per week as volunteers assisting students in improving their skills. They are enthused and positive about the program, but the students and their teacher are too! The teachers select the students to participate based on their assessment of reading and writing skills. PALS volunteers pick up the student at their classroom and have the opportunity to discuss progress with the teachers on a one–on-one basis.
In closing, the PALS program is benefiting the students of Blanco by providing them mentors who assist in improving their reading and writing skills. It benefits the teachers by augmenting their teaching time with one-on –one as assistance outside of normal classroom activities. It benefits the PALS volunteers by seeing their students improve and demonstrate enthusiasm during their PALS sessions.
Last, it benefits the entire community through better educated students who are destined to become better educated and more productive adults. The Rotary’s donation of $1,000 to the program supports each of the above.