ERIK SANZENBACH / L’Observateur / October 6, 1999

LAPLACE – The first-graders at LaPlace Elementary School are getting special attention from education students at the University of Alabama.

Under a pen-pal project started by LaPlace Elementary Principal Courtney Millet and University of Alabama professor Dr. James Kirylo, first-gradersare writing letters to education students in Alabama. The Alabamaeducators, in return, answer the letters with correct sentence structure, spelling and grammar. The idea is to help the first-graders learn how towrite. It also offers the children a chance to get a look at the outsideworld and understand the importance of learning to write correctly.

“I think it makes their writing more meaningful,” says Millet, “It gives them a purpose for writing.”The idea for the pen-pal project started when Millet was reading an article in an educational journal.

“I saw this article on pen-pals,” she said, “and I sent it to my friend Dr.

James Kirylo in Alabama.”The project began in the first weeks of the 1999-2000 school year with the LaPlace Elementary first-graders writing to the University of Alabama students. The education majors then wrote back. As an extrabonus, the college students send the children University of Alabama pencils and candy.

Millet says that with the next batch of letters from the first-graders they will also send bags of Zapp’s potato chips to the college students because it is something made in Louisiana.

At the end of the project, Millet and Kirylo hope to make a study of the writing trends of the first-graders and see where they can improve on teaching children how to write.

Kathy Schaefer, one of the first-grade teachers, is impressed with the project.

“Our kids do pretty well,” she says. “It has given the children an awarenessof words and helped in their spelling.”One of the first-grade classes is called an inclusive first grade. This is aclass with a combination of special education students with other children. Dolly Forsythe, special education instructor, says the pen-palproject has helped a lot.

“The kids are doing much better in the inclusive class with this project,” says Forsythe.

Down the hall in Lizabeth Triche’s first-grade class, the mood is exuberant and expectant as Millet hands out the letters from the University of Alabama. The children get a big charge out of actuallygetting mail personally sent to them.

A lot of the letters have pictures from the college students, and the firs- graders are thrilled to see the faces of the person who is writing to them.

One of the children, 6-year old Cody Roy, didn’t get a picture with his letter, and he writes back, “Why did you not send me a picture?” Millet says, “We have a digital camera, and we will send pictures of the children in the next batch of letters.”All of the letters from the University of Alabama are simple, saying thank you for the earlier letters, telling the kids what their favorite color is, or if they have pets. One woman even relates how she plays the piano andguitar, which really impresses the 6-year old reader.

“That’s pretty good,” the little girl says in awe. “I can only sing.”There are some children who didn’t get letters, and Triche tells them to compose a letter asking why they didn’t get mail.

Soon, the class is busy with children concentrating on making the right letters, asking how to spell certain words, laughing, and chattering. Theyare immersed in the assignment.

Millet, Triche and several teaching assistants move from desk to desk explaining words, spelling difficult words and showing the children the correct parts of a letter.

Millet looks over the class.

“They are really interested in doing well,” she says.

Return To News Stories