Spectrum News pays a visit to our community partner, St. Aloysius Gonzanga School.

Spectrum News Report, Ariel Wesler interviewed our friends a St. Aloysius, spending time with first grade teacher Ms. Zatchell Fortin. A math teacher at St. Aloysius, Ms. Fortin has a unique approach on how she teaches math in her class. Instead of using traditional textbooks, she has implemented children’s books into her curriculum as a creative way to teach her students mathematical concepts.

She shares, “[Textbooks] are very daunting, very long, and give students major anxiety, but if I use children’s books, storybooks, it helps them connect.” By integrating storytelling found in children’s books into her math classes, Ms. Fortin has said that her students are able to strengthen their literacy and math skills simultaneously.

Teachers at St. Aloysius such as Ms. Fortin have access to free new children’s books thanks to Gordon Philanthropies Communities That Read Together, Grow Together reading program. Thanks to the reading program, Gordon Philanthropies has provided over 50,000 books within the past year to students in underserved areas.

View the Spectrum News Inside the Issues segment to learn more, and listen to everything Ms. Fortin had to say, click here: St. Aloysius School | Inside the Issues.