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RELAY FOR LEARNING
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Desiree D’Altorio, a fourth-grader at Taft Elementary School, Youngstown, rolls into the Relay for Learning at the school. Students, divided into teams, race to the front of the gymnasium, answer a question and race back.
By Denise Dick
Youngstown
Taft Elementary School fourth-grader Aidan Niemczura raced to the front of the gymnasium as a teacher flashed “3 X 4” on a card.
Aidan, 9, knows the answer is 12.
“It helps us learn our multiplication,” he said. “It’s going to help us because there are going to be hard problems on the test this year.”
Relay for Learning, practiced each day in the gym, started two years ago as a way to reinforce in a fun way what children were learning in the classroom, said Principal Michael Flood.
Lois Thornton, behavioral specialist at the school, came up with the game which may be geared to different grade levels.
Students are divided into teams, and one from each team at a time runs to the teachers who display a problem, word or question on a card. The student answers and, if it’s correct, races back to the team to allow the next child a turn. If the answer is wrong, they can try again or ask for help from another team member.
While fourth-graders focused Wednesday on multiplication tables, second-graders practiced using words in a sentence.
Destiny Talley’s word was look.
“I look at my mom,” the 8-year-old said.
Jaylen Wiley, 7, got “red.”
“My favorite color is red,” he said.
Both say they enjoy the game. Jaylen likes racing to the front at the end of each round.
“You’re learning, and you’re having fun,” Destiny said.
Thornton said that as the year progresses, students are expected to use those words in more complex sentences.
“If the word is cat, at the beginning of the year, they’ll say, ‘I have a cat,’” she said. “By February, they’re saying, ‘I have a yellow cat and it stays in the basement.’”
Once the game started, it caught on, Flood said, and students seem to enjoy it.
He credits it with helping to improve standardized test scores.
Teachers relay concepts or areas where students need more work.
Fifth-grader Taylor Lofton, 10, hopes for a question with 11 in the equation when working with multiplication tables.
“All you have to do is double the number,” she said.
Taylor enjoys the game and believes it helps all of the classmates to learn.
“When you work on it more, you get better at it,” she said.