Edith L. Slocum Elementary School

Slocum students parade their way to reading success with Secret Stories

Edith L. Slocum Elementary kindergarten through third graders hosted a parade to celebrate the end of their Secret Stories unit.

Since the beginning of the school year, students have been learning how to master phonics rules using a tool called Secret Stories. Each day, a “top secret” envelope was dropped off at the primary grade-level classrooms containing that day’s Secret Story.

Secret Stories makes learning to read more fun and engaging by turning tricky spelling rules into “secret” stories or characters. In English, words don’t always sound the way they’re spelled. For example, “ph” sounds like an “f”. Instead of memorizing these patterns, Secret Stories uses creative stories or characters to explain why certain letter combinations make certain sounds.

For the parade, each student either dressed as their favorite Secret Story character or held posterboards, presenting their favorite Secret Story. The students marched around the gymnasium singing the Secret Stories “Better Alphabet Song” for an audience of their older peers.