Our newest program, titled Reading & Writing Fire Safety but nicknamed ‘Reading Buddies', was written and designed for 5 th grade school children. Our goal was to have 5th grade school children create a fire safety story and then read it to a 2nd grade child within the same school. The concept was to get the children not only thinking about fire safety but actually reading and writing about fire safety while we weren't in the classroom. In doing this, we would meet NYS English Language Arts Learning Standards applicable to the 5th grade and create an in-school environment that supported fire safety and further develop a sense of community within the school walls. And, as an added benefit, it would also incorporate NYS Standards for Arts and Technology as children naturally progressed through this program.

Our co-operating school, the Northwood Elementary School , located in our Fire District but actually part of the Hilton Central School District , Hilton , New York , has always been a wonderful and supportive school to work with. Our first task, obtaining support from three 5 th grade classroom teachers and the school administrator, was too easy. Everyone was very excited by the idea and was more than willing to put in the appropriate classroom time that would be necessary to make it successful for the children involved. Next, we set up a time for us to sell the idea to the children. Having only a 30-35 minute asse mb ly, we quickly re-introduced ourselves to the children and talked about some of the things they should know about fire safety as 5 th graders having gone through 5-6 years of our fire safety programs. Topics included E.D.I.T.H., Smoke Detector Safety, Crawl Low Under Smoke, Get Out & Stay Out, and When to Call 911. We asked the children for their help in teaching the 2 nd graders because they were “…just not getting it…” from us old guys. We explained that we wanted the 5 th graders to create a fire safety story that would correctly teach one of the following fire safety messages; Crawl Low Under Smoke, When to Call 911, E.D.I.T.H., or Stop, Drop, & Roll. Using the short story, The Three Little Pigs , we reviewed the basic elements of a short story including plot, characterization and settings and descriptions. Reading the story aloud to the children, we discussed the actions of the words and how they corresponded to the pictures on the page. We also discussed the brightness and quality of the pictures and how they helped to tell the story aside from what was being read. Lastly, we fielded questions from the children before giving them their own Fire Safety Author pen to assist them in their creative writing. We gave each teacher a rubric of the fire safety topics that would be used as a checklist against the children's stories as well as a number of blank draft books that were nothing more than blank white pages, folded over and stapled in the middle.

The excitement was there immediately. The children had just about 2 weeks before we had to get their rough drafts from them and preview all of their fire safety facts. If any fact was wrong or inconsistent with what we teach as a fire safe message in our district, we would suggest the correct approach for final print. When we finished previewing the stories, about 65 in all, we sent them back to the children with a blank hard bound book for the final draft. One week later, when those were finished, we took one afternoon for a Reading Day where the 5 th graders, in an asse mb ly, presented their work as a whole to each other, three 2 nd grade classes who would later act as an audience, school board me mb ers, fire chiefs, fire commissioners, and firefighters – all there to support the work. One 5 th grade class paired up with one 2 nd grade class and they went to a mutually agreed upon designated area to further divide so the 5 th graders could read their stories in a small group setting. We gave the children 25-30 minutes to read, change groups and read again before we all met again out front in the school bus loop for an ice cream and cookie social. Outside, we had a fully staffed quint and engine assisting with the handing out of treats, giving tours of the equipment and even posing for pictures with the children.

Now, here is what we learned from the teachers and the children:

The teachers explained to us that we needed to be a bit clearer on our beginning instructions and emphasize that the books should be more pictures and less text as the reading audience is in 2 nd grade, not in 5 th grade like the author. Although not many, we did have some stories that contained an excessive amount of text. We also needed to better incorporate the school technology teacher for expected student computer use as well as the ESOL teacher for students who speak English as a second language. We had numerous children using computers for picture icons as well as text boxes because they either had trouble with language or had developmental problems where a computer was needed for success. One teacher had success telling his children to wait for the final editions before putting in the art work. To help speed up the rough drafts, he had the children write in what they would draw or color to help tell the story. Finally, teachers also asked us to be “Publishers” for the children, editing not only for fire safety content but for all content. So, we created an Editors Sheet and filled one out for every story that we previewed editing for story line, characterization, settings and descriptions as well as overall impressions.

The children taught us to expect anything. We had stories of every kind from outstanding to horrible. We had stories that took place in the future with little fluffy hairballs as characters to stories with pandas having a fire in their homes in the woods. Some stories were very basic and others were extensive manuals on fire safety that would make any NFPA journal jealous. We did catch some children copying each others ideas and we even found one child who copied an already published children's book about fire safety. We informed the teachers who then had to teach the class about plagiarism. Lastly, only one story was written that included a death. We decided that it would be best to show successful fire safety messages and not scare the 2 nd graders with these types of stories. We informed the teacher of this and also asked the student for a rewrite on our Editor's Sheet. We are not ignorant to the possible outcomes of fire but we also did not want nor need a school psychologist on scene at our Reading Day for any traumatized children.

These books also allowed us to see what the children have been learning over the years in our programs. It became very apparent that we were doing a pretty good job as not many stories needed correction on the fire safety messages. We also realized that it takes a lot of work to review 65 stories and get them back to the children in a timely fashion. I literally fell asleep on my couch at home one night after 1:30 am trying to finish a stack of rough draft previews. Lastly, the teachers informed us that this program was a success due to their lighter schedules in the springtime. If it had been in January or February, they would have needed more time to complete the project.

We felt we had a very successful program that wowed not only the bosses but also the school teachers and administrators. To think that a bunch of local firefighters could actually create, implement and run a program that teaches to state education standards and excites the children at the same time .