Horse stories spark love for reading at Annunciation School

As residents of mostly rural Washington Parish, the majority of students at Annunciation School either own horses, ride them or regularly see them grazing in fields.

So when educators at the Bogalusa school learned of a program that connected children’s interest in horses with a love for reading, they snapped up the idea and ran with it.

This school year, first and fifth graders took part in the “Black Stallion Literacy Project,” whose goal is to help children “read and succeed” by exposing them to horse-related literature. The Florida-based foundation was co-founded by Steven Farley, whose late father, Walter, was the author of 21 books, including the 1941 classic, “The Black Stallion.”

“(The foundation’s founders) wanted children to love both horses and reading and to be able to see how they could succeed the more they read,” said Debbie Bateman, Annunciation librarian.

Last September, both classes took a bus trip to Amite to attend a theatrical production with horses. Each fifth grader received a copy of “The Black Stallion,” while each first grader received a book in Farley’s “Little Black” series of young children’s books, “Little Black: A Pony.” The library was also given the film version of “The Black Stallion” for its DVD collection.

Using lesson plans provided by the foundation, the first graders learned vocabulary words related to horses and drew pictures of horses. The fifth graders read the first few chapters of “The Black Stallion” together as a class, mapped the journey of the book’s shipwrecked main characters and learned vocabulary words related to the parts of a ship. However, they were not assigned any extra projects.

“The goal of this was to have the children completely enjoy the experience – we wanted them to come back (from the performance) and really want to read the book, which they did,” said Bateman, co-coordinator of the project with first-grade teacher Susan Wilkins and fifth-grade teacher Jennifer George.

“They love the adventure component of ‘The Black Stallion,’” Bateman said. “They enjoy the various locations it takes them. They enjoy the fact that there are numerous sequels to the book,” she said, noting that the original book, in particular, offers readers “character-building” lessons related to the values of courage, perseverance and trust.

In March, Rebecca Stewart, the foundation’s Louisiana coordinator, came to campus to present an enthusiastic talk about the connection between horses and reading, stressing the importance of reading for both pleasure and knowledge. At the end of the talk, Stewart led first graders on a treasure hunt around their campus that culminated with an opportunity to pet two ponies and open a treasure box containing another Black Stallion book for them to take home, “Little Black Goes to the Circus.”

“It’s a really good book for kids to read,” noted first grader Emily Cothern, adding that she loved the part of the book in which the horse walks on a balance beam at the circus.

“I read a lot of horse books. They’re very loving and fun,” added Audrey Bebe, who has a horse named Rosie. “They listen to you, and when they get used to you, they really love you.”

Besides the “Black Stallion” series, other horse-related books enjoyed by Annunciation students include: “Black Beauty,” the 1877 classic by Anna Sewell; the “Hoofbeats” series of books by Kathleen Duey; “King of the Wind: The Story of the Godolphin Arabian,” a 1949 Newbery Medal winner by Marguerite Henry and Wesley Dennis; “Horses,” an extra-large picture book about horse breeds by James Kingston; and “Molly the Pony: A True Story” by Pam Kaster, which Bateman says is a great “read-aloud” selection for pre-readers.

First grader Rett Williams, an enthusiastic reader, offered his peers the following advice: “Never stop reading books or you won’t know anything at all.”

For more information, visit www.bslf-online.org