READING TIPS AND NOTES / INSIGHTS FROM THE CLASSROOM

Imagine a classroom filled with excited children ripping apart envelopes and anxiously reading the letter inside. Everyone loves to receive letters and children are no exception. We at Welby Way Elementary School have nurtured this type of excitement about reading and writing through our schoolwide postal system.

Four years ago, I started a school mail service in which students may write letters or postcards to any person at our school. School corridors were labeled with street names on the theme of endangered animals, such as “Panda Place” and “Bald Eagle Boulevard.”

I also constructed a portable mail center made out of cardboard so that mail sorting could take place in a different classroom each day of the week. Special ink stamps were made with our school name on them, as well as a “return to sender” stamp for incorrectly addressed mail.

This program has been so successful that some days the mailbox is overflowing. Students in my classroom even stay in at recess and lunchtime to compose letters to friends. On any given day, students can be seen dressed in real postal shirts delivering student-generated mail.

Letter writing encourages children to write in a meaningful way to a real audience. Students also realize how important it is to write legibly with correct spelling, grammar and punctuation so that their correspondence can be understood.

It is not unusual for a student to come to me complaining, “Mrs. Lyttle, I can’t read this letter! It is too sloppy and some of the sentences don’t make sense!” I seize the moment and encourage the student to realize how important it is to write neatly and correctly so that others can read and enjoy what has been written.

The educational value of this program is enormous. Not only are children motivated to read the letters they receive, but they are excited about writing letters to one another.

When learning to read or write, the motivation component cannot be ignored. Letter writing provides students with a meaningful context in which to write on a topic of their own choice.

Children soon realize that the more letters they write, the more letters they receive. The letters become the reward for putting the time and effort into writing. These intrinsic rewards, rather than extrinsic rewards of candy or stickers, are an educator’s triumph.

Some students I had in second grade are still writing to me three years later. Parents also are encouraged to utilize our mail system to write letters to their children.

The schoolwide mail service augments our literacy program in a manner that is rewarding and motivating to students of all ages. As a teacher for almost 20 years, I have found no better way of nurturing the love of reading and writing in young children than to have them open a mailbox and find a letter with their name on it.

BOOK EVENTS

* Monday in Venice: Preschool story time, with songs and finger plays at 7 p.m. at the Venice-Abbott Kinney Memorial Library, 501 S. Venice Blvd. (310) 821-1769.

* Wednesday in Los Angeles: Story time for children at 4 p.m. at the Central Library, 630 W. 5th St. (213) 228-7000.

* Wednesday in Burbank: “Jammyfest,” storytelling for children, who are invited to attend in their sleepwear. 7 p.m. at Barnes & Noble, 731 N. San Fernando Blvd. (818) 558-1383.

* Saturday in Woodland Hills: Story time for children at 10:30 a.m. at Bookstar, 21440 Victory Blvd. (818) 702-9515.