Renton teacher Harvey Sadis to receive KCTS Golden Apple award

Tune in to watch the program on February 24, 7 p.m., Channel 9

February 10, 2005 Harvey Sadis, second-grade teacher at Cascade Elementary, will be honored by KCTS television with the Golden Apple award in a televised ceremony on Feb. 24 at 7 p.m. on KCTS Channel 9.

For the past 17 years, Harvey has produced Shakespearean plays with young children, helping them build literacy skills through meaningful, firsthand experience with classic literature and theatre. Although Harvey pares away some passages and speeches in order to fit the reach of 7- and 8-year-olds, the plays are performed entirely in the Bard's English, with not a word changed. For 30 weeks, Harvey's students work through their scripts, soaking up the language, its rhythms, rhymes and meanings as they learn their lines. The process culminates in May, when the children perform the play in Elizabethan costume for students and parents. The students experience the playwright's words by acting them and in the process, develop an appetite for wonderful language. In addition to his work in the classroom, Harvey has created a successful fundraising appeal to support a theatre field-trip program so that his young actors have an opportunity to experience professional theatre. At the end of last year, when his students took the annual state-mandated reading assessments, the benefits of Harvey's unique approach manifested themselves in impressive scores; in many cases, students had jumped two grade levels in reading in a single year. Harvey's work has transformed second-graders into successful readers and introduced them to a whole new world of literature.

Also receiving a Golden Apple award is the Page Ahead Children's Literacy Program. Page Ahead has worked extensively with schools and programs throughout Renton to enrich schools' existing curricula through activities and resources including interactive reading events, family events that encourage parents to read with their children, and materials to help parents support their children's reading. The program annually provides materials and technical assistance to 200 schools and other reading programs that care for at-risk children. Each year, Page Ahead distributes more than 140,000 age-appropriate new books to children from low-income families and sponsors more than 600 motivational reading events statewide.

The Golden Apple awards are sponsored by KCTS and PEMCO Insurance. This statewide awards program honors outstanding individuals and programs making a dramatic difference in Washington state education in grades pre-K through 12. This year represents a significant milestone, as it marks the 10th anniversary of the Golden Apple Awards. The objective of the Awards is to discover and share success stories and to reinforce the belief that there is much to celebrate in education.