Growing literate in the literacy garden

NEA Today, Nov 1999

Roosevelt-Perry Elementary in Louisville combines the great outdoors with great literature-and the kids love it.

Few of the innercity students at Roosevelt-Perry Elementary School in Louisville, Kentucky, had ever laid eyes on a garden, much less enjoyed one, until last year.

That's when local students and their teachers created, right in front of their school, a 230foot-long "Literacy Garden," a peaceful, yet stimulating, environment designed to motivate students to read.

The new garden, says Janis Lowe, the resource teacher who originated the project, is giving students the chance to "cult'svate their gardens," both literally and in the literary sense.

The garden's 12 plots, Lowe points out, each illustrate the theme of a popular children's book. The Wizard of Oz Garden, for instance, features a path of yellow bricks-laid by the children.

Over in the Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Garden, mint plants grow in abundance, while clematis vines climb up the 12-foot-high arches that overlook the Secret Garden.

In the Fairy Tale Garden, "enchanted" concrete benches are shaped like bunnies and squirrels, and large, irregular-shaped concrete walking stones look like slices of tree trunks for children to dance over. Students landscaped other gardens with ornamental grasses, daylilies, and black-eyed Susans.

Children at every grade level of the school-considered among the poorest in Kentucky-helped create the special plots.

"This project allowed us to blend science, art, and reading," says Lowe.

Students. for instance, learned the difference between dirt versus living soil-by digging the earth up. having it tested, and learning what it needed to be fertile.

The students also made suggestions on how to make each garden pretty and more representative of each book's theme. They learned which plants grow in shade and which require more sun. They planted seeds. laid bricks, weeded and watered their gardens.

Other students painted pictures on tiles that were later attached to panels and mounted onto one of the school walls to form a 24-foot-high mural.

Several factors inspired the Literacy Garden. One, says Lowe, was her school's focus on literacy.

Another was a student comment that still haunts Lowe even today. One of Lowe's colleagues had suggested to a student that she learn her multiplication tables while sitting under a tree.

"But I don't got no trees," the 4th grader politely replied.

Lowe put that anecdote in a proposal for a $2,500 Fred Wiche School Gardening Award-named for a local radio/TVl celebrity. She ended up beating out proposals from 26 other schools. and the University of Louisville provided matching funds, which helped the school hire a scientist-in-residence to oversee the project.

Other community organizations and businesses also helped develop the garden. The local ironworkers union donated iron rebars and bent and mounted them to form the arches now over the Secret Garden.

Several nurseries provided plants at no cost. A local tile layer grouted and adhered the tiles to panels for the outdoor mural. And the school system contributed mulch to the project.

"Children and parents love this garden, and they use it," says Sharon Erny, who teaches first grade. "The students like to read in the garden and walk through it, and they've taken ownership of it, telling us when the garden needs weeding and watering."

It's too early to know if the garden has helped boost reading scores, but the garden has clearly become a place that children take pride in, a place to grow their self-esteem.

"That," says Lowe, "can only help with all their academics!"

Recommended Resources

Carr, Janine Chappell. A Child Went Forth: Reflective Teaching with Young Readers and Writers (Heinemann, 1999).

English, Evelyn Williams. Gift of Literacy for the Multiple Intelligences Classroom (SkyLight, 1999).

Finn. Patrick I. Literacy with an Attitude: Educating Wlorking-Class Children in Their Oi,vn Self-lnterest (State University of New York, 1999).

For More Information:

Contact Lowe at jlowe1 @jefferson.k12, ky.us. You can find out more about the Literacy Garden and other projects in Teaching with Technology. Read this NEA Professional Library book free online at www.nea.org/books or order by calling 800/229-4200 (Item #29151-00-F. $9.95 for members).