Literacy

All Potomac students engage in foundational service learning experiences connected to four community needs: hunger, homelessness, and poverty; literacy; the elderly; and the environment. They become empowered by a greater understanding of these needs and lead or participate in activities such as:

• Third Grade, Falls Church McLean Children's Center 
  As part of Potomac's annual Book Fair, Lower School students share their love of reading with young children in our local community as part of a service learning initiative focused on literacy. Third graders work together with their Kindergarten buddies to select books for preschoolers at Falls Church McLean Children's Center, providing books for the young children to enjoy at home.
• Fifth Grade, Higher Horizons
  To help students understand the importance of literacy development, Potomac partners with Higher Horizons, a Head Start program that serves 300 low-income families in Fairfax County. Fifth grade students visit Higher Horizons every winter to read books with the preschoolers and donate children’s books to help build a parent lending library.
• Eleventh and Twelfth Grades, Community Action Program
  Emphasizing student choice, junior and senior advisory groups select their community partner in the 11th and 12th grade Community Action Program. Many student groups choose to serve with local child development centers, including Bright Beginnings and Rosemount Center in Washington DC, that includes reading to the preschool children and helping teachers in the classrooms.

Service Learning is important because you can help people in need. It makes me feel good. It makes me happy because I am doing something for the better.Veer Mathur, Student