What’s Right With Our Schools: Battlefield Elementary Ben Carson Reading Room
FORT OGLETHORPE, GA (WDEF) – Young scholars have a great place turn a few pages at Battlefield Elementary School. The Ben Carson Reading Room is now open.
Candy Carson is a Co-Founder for the Carson Scholars Fund.
She explains, “Actually we started back in 2000 with these reading rooms, because our board of Carson Scholars Fund decided they wanted to take advantage of my husband Ben’s success.”
Fellow Co-Founder, Dr. Ben Carson adds, “I was always reading, and within the space of a year and a half I went from the bottom of class to the top of the class, much to the consternation of all those students who used to laugh and call me dummy.”
Candy continues, “When he was in fifth grade, he was at the bottom of his class, but his mother started a special reading program for him, and he went from the bottom to the top in one and a half years, and that was from reading.”
She adds, “So starting in 2000, we started putting in Ben Carson Think Big Reading Rooms which are whimsically decorated to draw the kids in and help them to discover a love of learning.”
That lesson is not lost on 5th grader Chloe Peponis.
She says, “I like that this room is just so comfy and cozy, and those those seats over there are, they are like stringy personal clouds.”
Camden Bedard, a 4th grader adds, “These are wooden chairs and that’s um plastic, and then you can also lean back and there’s pillows right here, so you can be, so you can read the book in comfort.”
4th grader McKenzie Shannon chips in, “I like how the area is kind of like cozy, and it’s like comfortable in here, and there’s like a bunch of books and you can find them, like easily.”
Candy Carson concludes, “They can read for points and turn them in for prizes, and at first they’re doing it for the prizes, but after a while they learn to love learning, because I’m sure you’ve probably heard it said that, from birth through third grade you learn to read, but from fourth grade on you read to learn. So, if kids aren’t reading on point by the end of third grade then they’re going to be behind.”
