FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 29, 2016, 5:00 p.m. CDT
Contact Jason Hogue, Peru State College Marketing and Communications, 402.872.2429
Peru, Nebraska- Peru State College students and education faculty hosted a Family
Literacy Game Night at St. Andrew School in Tecumseh, Nebraska on February 11. Dr.
Gina Bittner, Dr. Kelly Kingsley and 28 teacher candidates hosted the event for the
small area Catholic school.
Family Literacy Game Night is an ongoing partnership between Peru State College and
St. Andrew School in its third year. The night is designed to showcase developing
best practices in teaching literacy and engaging parents and families with future
teachers.
St. Andrew has a total school population of 21 students for the 2015-2016 school year,
but this event roused 26 participating children and 48 family members.
Dr. Kingsley states, “It is so rewarding to see smiles on the faces of the students
and teacher candidates while they interact.”
“Students are practicing literacy skills and the teacher candidates are practicing
their teaching skills in a fun and engaging way throughout the evening.”
The event kicked off with a Pizza Hut meal, funded partially by a grant written by
Drs. Bittner & Kingsley. Principal and pastor, Father Craig Clinch delivered a welcoming
message.
Family Literacy Game Night featured seven family game stations. The event’s games
all stemmed from a familiar game, like Candy Land, Go Fish, and Speed Cup Stacking.
However, each game had a special twist and reinforced a necessary literacy skill,
such as fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, word identification, or phonics. Upon
conclusion of the game stations, each child was provided with a free book.
According to Dr. Bittner, “To be able to witness the demonstration of hands-on literacy
teaching to parents by our teacher candidates, to model team-teaching for our teacher
candidates as Dr. Kingsley and I work together, and to interact with parents in a
professional, yet casual, setting provides such high quality interactions that wouldn’t
be possible in a classroom setting."
ELL Family Literacy Group Left to right; back row: Jacob Gleason, Jared Haag, Kylie
Allgood, Mackenzie Faris, Dana Christensen, Maggie Robertson, Philip Janssen, Benjamin
Kill, Spencer Krone. Middle: Heather DiPaolo, Danielle Hall, Trae Ramer, Alyssa Welna,
Rebecca Wessling, Pamela Riffle, Lauren Hull, Haevyn Hug, Tracey Younker, Amie Yowell,
Emily Hamblin, Zoe Frink. Front: Marissa Florian, Audrey Little, MaKayla Riesberg,
Denise Sinclair, Erin Formanek, Theresa Durst, Bethany Sandiver
ELL Family Literacy Group. Left to right: Denise Sinclair, Theresa Durst, Lauren Hull, Pamela Riffle, Marissa Florian
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For more information, visit www.peru.edu or call 1-800-742-4412.
About Peru State College: Peru State’s “Campus of a Thousand Oaks,” an arboretum,
is nestled in historic southeast Nebraska. The state’s first college, Peru State offers
a unique mix of innovative online and traditional classroom undergraduate and graduate
programs, including online graduate degrees in education and organizational management.
It is a college of choice fostering excellence and student achievement through engagement
in a culture that promotes