First grade veteran educator Ryan Reynolds gives reading and writing tips to parents. Rising first grader Kortez and mom Andrea Moore celebrate his summer learning growth. As rising first graders and best friends, Kortez and Alaya sang “Down by the Bay” in their summer learning music cla ssroom at Family Academy of Multilingual Exploration (FAME). They were both then surprised to turn around and see each of their moms in the same classroom beside them. That was the scene last Friday at a summer learning celebration hosted by New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) at the 255 Blatchley Ave. public school. The event welcomed parents and families into the school to check out what their summer campers were up to and what educational tips and tricks they could bring home with them. Similar celebrations were planned for the district’s Hill Central and Davis School building sites, which also hosted K-4 summer programming from July 1 to July 24. When families arrived at FAME on Friday, they signed in, filled out a survey, and then were escorted by the program’s more than 30 staffers — which include teachers, paraprofessionals, and incoming Teach for America educators. FAME summer building lead Tania Lawrence, who also works as a literacy specialist at FAME during the school year, said the goal for the summer-learning commencement event was to welcome families into the building’s classrooms to show them exactly what their students have been up to and who has been supporting their growth. The summer program used NHPS’ existing core subject curriculums — Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), iReady, and Smithsonian — to review what students learned during the school year to strengthen their skills during the 17-day program. FAME was also one of the district’s extended school year (ESY) sites for middle schoolers. It was the district’s largest summer site with around 145 K-4 students attending daily. With ESY students, that number rose to around 160 daily. The school also hosted monolingual and multilingual classrooms for summer programming that ran from 8 a.m to 12:30 p.m. Each classroom this summer was staffed with one lead teacher and a paraprofessional. Lawrence started her 24-year career with NHPS as a paraprofessional while in college. She then moved up to a teacher and a building leader for the past 14 years. She said the FAME summer staff, including her, have stayed just about the same since her start. This is the second summer FAME has been used as a summer site. Previously, Lawrence and her team were at Fair Haven School for summer programming. As parents entered FAME Friday, some also looked through several clothing racks full of kids clothing that were free to take. At around 8:40 a.m. in Edgewood music teacher Hillyn Natter’s summer classroom at FAME, Natter sat among a group of rising first graders. She strummed a ukulele and sang “Down by the Bay” in unison with the students, who sat “criss cross applesauce” on the rug. As they sang the hook of the song, Natter pointed to a student with a raised hand who then would share a rhythm they had practiced coming up with during their summer writing period. Natter partnered with summer kindergarten educator Ryan Reynolds, who teaches first grade during the school year at Nathan Hale, to combine her music lessons with some of his classroom teaching. Reynolds worked with his students alongside paraprofessional Kiara Spears to help the students make sentences, but with a rhythmic twist allowing for the students to use their sentence practicing in music class. While Natter went through song after song with her class, Alaya and her mom Eneida Martinez held hands while dancing together. When Natter said today was the group’s last class together, one student called out, “I’m so sad.” Natter’s goal this summer has been providing her students with a place that they belong. They accessed that safe space through music. Simultaneously with the rising first graders she said they spent the summer reinforcing a steady beat and being a listener. This is the first summer Natter has continued teaching into the summer, primarily because summer programming hasn’t typically offered music as its own course. She also looked forward to being able to work with smaller groups of students than she usually does during the school year. She added that she enjoyed temporarily being in a new school. FAME specifically “felt like coming back home,” Natter said, as she started her teaching career at a dual language school in New London. She concluded that this summer helped “validate the importance of the arts” and introduced her to new staff around the district. Across the hall from Natter’s classroom was the program’s bilingual elementary classrooms where parents played bingo in Spanish side by side with their children. “For Alaya, if I show interest in her education and what she’s learning,” Martinez said, “she’s more inclined to be more interested in it too.” She said her presence in her daughter’s education makes it easier for Alaya to engage and have conversations about her day with her. “It’s important to me that she make that connection that it’s important and that she can learn with me as well,” Martinez said. Martinez also was interested in learning more about the district’s learning curriculums to better inform her when she studies at home with her daughter. “I had no idea that this is how they’re teaching math now. So at home now when we’re going over math and reading I can reiterate how she learns during day.” Teaching now is very different from when Martinez was in school, she recalled. Therefore, she hopes to duplicate the current school system’s ways of learning at home. During the school year Alaya attends John S. Martinez School, which her mother said she loves. Martinez, a New Haven native, also attended John Martinez in her youth. Martinez noted that while Alaya is on grade level with her learning, she enrolled her in the summer programming because she wanted to be sure her daughter didn’t lose any of the learning she did during the school year. “Sometimes for working parents or parents with several kids it can be hard to keep up with a consistent structure at home,” she said. “This is really just enhancement for her so she can go to first grade ready and confident.” After enjoying a pizza lunch to energize for the conclusion of the day, Alaya said she was excited and happy to have her mom with her at school. Martinez concluded that she hopes other New Haven parents take advantage of the school district and city resources like the summer programming at FAME. “It’s important when resources are offered that people take advantage because that helps them decide things like funding. When they see a need for it, it’s more likely to continue,” she said. Before heading home for the day, Alaya got in a few more books, on top of the four she read earlier in the day for class, and read them alongside her mother. Other students showed their parents around their classroom. Kortez’s mother, Andrea Moore, attended Friday’s event because as a paraprofessional for NHPS, she wanted to learn more about the summer programming. She learned a lot during her visit Friday, in between dancing and singing with Kortez. She learned that, while the summer program incorporates a lot of fun, that fun is typically play-based learning and rooted in continuing to help the students develop academically and socially. “I thought it was going to just be play but I see him interacting with his classmates in new ways he wasn’t before,” she said. Moore cheered and hugged Kortez after a lunch break because he volunteered to read through several books with her. That’s despite him starting the 2025-26 school year needing extra support with reading. She smiled while Kortez moved away from just looking at the pictures of a book to confidently reading the words on the pages. While Kortez took a break to play with friends during Moore’s visit, she used that time to talk with Reynolds about strategies she could learn to take home with her and continue encouraging Kortez’s love for learning. Reynolds walked her through tips and tricks for fun ways he used to teach his students to count to 120, a goal he had for his rising first graders this summer. “It’s important for them to show parents what they’re learning and how so we can bring it back home,” Moore said. Reynolds also talked Moore through a strategy for reading and writing, which was teaching students not just what the letter “B” sounds like but also what it looks like. Throughout the summer Reynolds played a game with his students where he would challenge them to change a three-letter word to a different word but only by changing one letter. He grabbed his expo marker Friday to show Moore by writing the word “bug” first on the white board. He then showed how by erasing the letter “u” and changing it to “i” the word would become “big.” He then changed a single letter of that word to make the word “wig” while encouraging Moore to try it at home with Kortez to build up a student’s recognition skills and repetition of sounds. Reynolds then shared with parents other games he played like “disco dancing” where students would dance on the class rug together until Reynolds called out a word. They would then rush back to their tables to write that word down then return to dancing. They also played hopscotch with sight words they were learning or fished for words in another game. Moore concluded she is excited to see Kortez’s improvements over the summer be reflected in his first-grade classroom at Truman in the fall. Reynolds reflected Friday that summer programming keeps him fresh as an educator. “Some say it can lead to burnout but for me it’s a reality check,” he said. As a first-grade teacher, Reynolds said, he’s able to see what students around the district need heading into the fall. He uses many of the lessons “disguising learning with fun” that he used this summer during the school year. As a 30-year veteran educator, he concluded, “these kids deserve a small learning setting at some point. They might not be able to get it during the year so this can meet that need.” Spears has been working summer programing for the district since being in Youth@Work. She also worked at LEAP until stepping into the paraeducator role at Dr. Mayo School during the school year. The summer teaching has allowed her to work with grades beyond her usual elementary students. She is currently working to get her teaching certification and masters to continue her education career. Summer class is in session for parents too! Martinez and Alaya. Music class listening game … …then a dance break! Moore celebrates as Kortez finishes reading another book. Summer kindergarten classroom teacher and para duo Reynolds and Spears. The post Parents Step Into FAME Summer Classroom appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less