SUFFOLK, Va. — Suffolk reading specialist Jill Gimenez is more than a reading teacher: she’s a literacy cheerleader.
“What’s more important are the sounds of the letters,” said teacher Jill Gimenez.
She's an advocate for students at Hillpoint Elementary in Suffolk. A group of first through fourth graders are getting some extra tutoring through a program called Five Star Phonics. It's a reading program Gimenez created.
“[What's] a word that starts with a ‘ph?'" Gimenez asked her students.
The students enthusiastically responded, "Phonics!" much to the delight of Gimenez.
"Phonics is powerful!” Gimenez told her students. “Nobody can take what you know away from you."
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Here’s how the reading program works: numbers on the laminated bingo cards correspond to playing cards. Students pick a card, correctly sound out the word, and then they cover the corresponding square on their bingo card with a round chip. The student wins when they get five phonetically similar words in a row.
This bingo reading game was born in 2016 when Gimenez was desperate to help students and their families who were struggling with reading.
“I had a class of fourth graders and 90% of them were below reading level," she said.
One of those student’s parents came to her in tears.
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“I met this parent who said, 'My child can’t read. He doesn’t want baby ABC books and he wants to read chapter books,'” said Gimenez. "He’s embarrassed and humiliated, my heart was aching."
She set out to fix this.
Using principles from other phonics programs, she came up with a new approach that she now calls Five Star Phonics.
“It challenged me to teach them phonics in a concise way," she said.
The method groups concepts together, rather than teaching them separately like other programs.
“I [wanted] a bingo game,” said Gimenez. "It would be good for adults and children. I [wanted] 24 words that are about that skill, and I started creating these cards. These cards helped that class of fourth graders to soar far beyond expectations."
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A year ago, Hillpoint student Aliyah Hawkins could only read a handful of words. Now she’s reading books.
“I like reading The Cat in the Hat books. I like reading my favorite books from when I was little,” said Aliyah. "Oh, what was it? It was Winnie the Pooh."
Gimenez started sharing her program with other reading teachers in the Suffolk district.
Dr. Graziella Labato-Creekmur teaches English grammar to Suffolk students K-12, including those whose first language is not English.
“This specific material, it's fun,” said Labato-Creekmur. "Who doesn’t like to play bingo? They’re fundamentally learning all the sounds that they need to be successful to speak and write in English, and it's fun and it's developmentally appropriate. That’s why I love it."
Gimenez hopes her Five Star Phonics program can be used by teachers beyond Suffolk as another tool to help English students of all ages learn to read.
She now sells her game and cards online, hoping to reach teachers, parents and educators who want to give Five Star Phonics a try.
