St. John Lutheran School Teacher Uses Grant Funding for Mentor Text Project

The program focuses on fostering a love of reading.

Photo provided.

(Aurora, Ind.) - St. John Lutheran School teacher Sarah Sharp was awarded a grant last August for her Mentor Text Project. 

Since being awarded the 2024-25 Educator Grant through the Dearborn County Retired Teachers Foundation, Sharp has implemented the mentor Text Project with her 7th and 8th grade students. 

The funding allowed Sharp to purchase complete Mentor Text packages from Smekens Literacy Store to use in her classroom, in addition to providing mentoring materials for 1st through 4th grade teachers. 

The goal of the project is to foster an atmosphere of love for reading and a solid grounding in language skills through one-on-one mentoring. Once a month, Sharp's 7th and 8th grade students read engaging stories to the 1st grade class followed by time spent identifying various mechanics found within the story.

So far, her 7th and 8th graders have reinforced literary building blocks such as sentence structures, punctuation, word choice, and parts of speech.

“They anticipate mentoring through the rest of this year and they’re hoping this becomes a tradition in their school. Below are some pictures of our activities along with statements from both our middle and elementary students. Thank you for your support and for awarding me the funding for this great project,” said Sharp.