Kathy’s Corner: Flower Mound's First Lending Library

Reading struggles at a young age was something that Dr. Northcutt understood well from her own personal experience.  Her early years of school were not enjoyable nor were they filled with a love of learning.  God eventually called Dr. Northcutt to teach children, particularly those that had reading difficulties, and teaching them has always been her passion.  “Reading to children is the best practice we can do to model for and inspire children to acquire an effective reading/writing process. To that end, schools must have many pleasurable read-alouds and books that children enjoy reading themselves.  My hope is that the books in CDA’s Lending Library will be widely used by teachers, parents, and children.  We learn to read by reading, and God has blessed me to have known all of the children He has sent to me.” 

 

Here is how the library will work…

 

Parents and students may select a book from the lending library at any time during school hours.  Books that are stamped with “Property of CDA FM Library” have been approved as appropriate literature for our school community. When finished with the book, please return it so that another family may enjoy it.  We do accept donations to the library!  If you have books to donate, simply place them in the bottom drawer of the library cabinet, located in the Grammar School lobby.  We will browse through the donations, stamp the books as approved, and add them to the collection. 

 

Dr. Northcutt earned her Ph.D. in Reading Education and holds a minor in Curriculum and Instruction from Texas Woman’s University.  Over the course of her professional career, she has worked as an adjunct professor for graduate and under-graduate students at the University of Texas system and Texas Woman’s University. She has further supported local universities by supervising pre-service workshops and student teachers. She is also a member of the International Literacy Association.

 

Dr. Northcutt taught in public school for almost 30 years where she:

 

For an additional 13 years, she worked as a Literacy Consultant, working with teachers and students in most of the 50 states and in international schools around the world. 

 

Dr. Northcutt has a passion for building reading fluency and comprehension in early learners.  Not only has she worked with and tutored many struggling readers, but she also supported the education of her own grandchildren with her wealth of knowledge and resources.  After her last grandchild at CDA moved from Grammar to Logic School, Dr. Northcutt graciously donated numerous resources to CDA in order to support our teachers and their classroom work with young readers.  Her donation of children’s reading books is what has allowed us to open our first CDA Lending Library.  We used her donation as the building block, and we have added to our collection with PTF support from our book buy-back program from our school Book Fair.  Even the CDA House system contributed by collecting books as a house service project.