Ingalls School students, staff celebrate reading

LYNN – Ingalls School fourth-grader Erick Rosas said he’s been told that you can obtain great mind powers if you read a lot of books, so he’s working on it.Ingalls School students and staff celebrated reading Tuesday with its annual Ingalls School Community Reader Day.”It’s an annual event that was started by (former principal) Kim Powers and is still being carried on,” said Principal Irene Cowdell.Powers, now executive director of curriculum and instruction for the School Department, was on hand to read along with a variety of retired Ingalls teachers, Superintendent Catherine Latham and School Committee members Rick Starbard, John Ford, Donna Coppola, Charlie Gallo, Maria Carrasco and Patty Capano. Lynn Teachers Union President Brant Duncan, Police Chief Kevin Coppinger, state Rep. Robert Fennell and Lynn Community Health Center Executive Director Lori Abrams Berry were also on hand.Most picked books from the school library to read but a few – Coppola, John Laubner and Fine Arts Director Joseph Picano – brought their own books. “I’ve read this to so many second-graders,” said Picano, pulling out his favorite, “Fritz and the Beautiful Horses,” by Jan Brett. “It has great illustrations.”Kerry Maguire also brought her favorite children’s book, “On the Loose in Boston,” written by her step-daughter Sage Stossel. Maguire, the school’s dentist, also donated the book, which is about animals that escape from the Franklin Park Zoo and roam the city, to the school.”I still remember when I learned to read in the first grade,” Maguire said. “I remember how excited I was because my world got a whole lot bigger.”Gallo called reading to the kids the best part of his job, and Coppinger joked that the students always ask him the oddest questions.Volunteer readers weren’t the only ones to get into the spirit. Teachers decorated their classroom doors with poetry, fiction and nonfiction books and authors, and some even dressed for the part.”Some exquisitely so and some will take you by surprise,” Cowdell said. “Don’t be surprised if you see Miss Pinkalicious in the hall.”First grade teacher Malynda Kidney decked herself out as the literary character Pinkalicious Pinkerton, lover of all things pink, while the kindergarten teachers dressed as crayons.In Karen Barbuzzi’s classroom, the door celebrated fractions and signs urged students to love math, but Tuesday they were all about celebrating reading.Assistant Director of Science Rick Held read students a story about simple machines and showed a short video on the same subject that had students oohing and ahhing in their seats.He urged to the kids to embrace reading but to also remember science is great and also fun to learn.Cowdell said the morning event was the kick-off to an all day celebration that concluded with an evening literary/art show for parents.Though it’s a whirlwind of a day, Cowdell said she loves the tradition.”It’s my passion,” she said. “My passion and my love has always been literacy.”