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Story time

Fourth-grade authors read their works to kindergartners at Cooper

-Messenger photo by Bill Shea
Case Richardson, a fourth-grader at Cooper Elementary School, reads a story that he wrote and illustrated to a group of kindergartners Friday afternoon at the school. Richardson was one of eight fourth-graders in the talented and gifted program who wrote and illustrated stories that were read Friday.

Kindergartners in Cooper Elementary School gathered in small groups Friday afternoon to hear stories read to them by the people who wrote them.

But the authors were not grown-ups. They were fourth graders — big kids that the kindergartners might see in their school every day.

Eight students in teacher Becky Allen’s talented and gifted class not only wrote the stories, they illustrated them using computer graphics.

Food seemed to be a common theme in the stories. At least two of them featured cookies, while another featured pizza.

The student-authors were Shayley Butrick, Greyson Hinds, Brooklyn Lamoureux, Isabelle Lara, Owen Lombard, Nolan Price, Case Richardson and Adrik Smith.

-Messenger photo by Bill Shea
Isabelle Lara, a fourth-grader at Cooper Elementary School, shows a group of kindergartners an illustration she created to accompany the story she was reading to them Friday afternoon at the school. Lara and seven other fourth-graders wrote and illustrated stories that they read Friday.

The stories were the result of a three-week project.

“They were a little apprehensive about it, but they got excited about it, especially when they learned they would get to read the stories to the kindergartners,” Allen said.

Allen said the project taught the students how to sequence the parts of a story. It also gave them practice in public speaking.

The students had their classmates edit their stories first, before going over them with Allen.

-Messenger photo by Bill Shea
These six Cooper Elementary School fourth-graders wrote and illustrated stories that they read to kindergartners at the school Friday. They are, from left, Nolan Price, Case Richardson, Greyson Hinds, Brooklyn Lamoureux, Shayley Butrick and Isabelle Lara. Two other student authors, Adrik Smith and Owen Lombard, are not pictured.

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