{"id":209463,"date":"2026-03-18T07:03:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T07:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/209463\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T07:03:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T07:03:11","slug":"book-podcast-helps-gcisd-students-foster-love-for-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/209463\/","title":{"rendered":"Book podcast helps GCISD students foster love for reading"},"content":{"rendered":"

A class of Tarrant County second-graders are discussing books over microphones, broadcasting their reviews of popular children\u2019s series like Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Magic Tree House through \u201ca modern-style book report.\u201d<\/p>\n

Students and educators at Heritage Elementary School in the Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District have launched a podcast, \u201cOnly Readers in the Building \u2013 Turning Pages Together,\u201d<\/a> as a fun and interactive way to get the school community involved in conversations about books. Twice a week, teacher Christi Cooper interviews her second-grade students for about three to six minutes each on books of their choice. She also invites other teachers on the podcast, first introducing them as \u201cmystery guests\u201d to see if students can guess who\u2019s speaking.<\/p>\n

Teachers, students and parents at Heritage Elementary can listen in on the discussions by scanning a QR code to the podcast that\u2019s displayed on posters throughout the school. For Cooper, one of the inspirations behind the semester-long initiative was to help her students grow their love for reading.<\/p>\n

\"A A poster advertising the podcast, \u201cOnly Readers in the Building \u2013 Turning Pages Together,\u201d is seen in the hallway of Heritage Elementary School in Grapevine-Colleyville ISD on Thursday, March 12, 2026. Second-grade students discuss books they\u2019re reading on the podcast twice a week. Lina Ruiz lruiz@star-telegram.com <\/p>\n

\u201cI came up with this idea because I felt like it would be more fun to do than a regular book report, so just a modern-style book report,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cI thought the idea of a podcast would be fun. I\u2019ve never done anything like that, and I thought the kids would really enjoy doing that part of technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Cooper\u2019s classroom on Thursday afternoon, student Kylo Weisberg was the latest bookworm to star on the podcast\u2019s 15th episode. He gave \u201c26-Storey Treehouse\u201d by Andy Griffiths a rating of five out of five stars and described it as energetic, crazy and funny. His live audience of classmates listened to his review and analysis of why he found the book entertaining.<\/p>\n

\u201cTerry feeds their pet sharks his underpants,\u201d Weisberg said, causing Cooper to chuckle mid-interview.<\/p>\n

Weisberg clarified there were three sharks total. Cooper asked why Terry did that.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was trying to clean it with the water, and the sharks jumped up and ate it,\u201d Weisberg added.<\/p>\n

After the recording was finished, Weisberg\u2019s classmates shared what they liked about being both participants and listeners of the podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s helping us enjoy books more,\u201d said Amy, who noted it only takes a few minutes out of the day to listen to an episode.<\/p>\n

\"Second-graders Second-graders listen as their classmate Kylo Weisberg discusses \u201c26-Storey Treehouse\u201d by Andy Griffiths with teacher Christi Cooper while recording an episode of the podcast, \u201cOnly Readers in the Building \u2013 Turning Pages Together,\u201d on Thursday, March 12, 2026. Cooper\u2019s students discuss books they\u2019re reading on the podcast twice a week, which is available to the Heritage Elementary School community in Grapevine-Colleyville ISD. Lina Ruiz lruiz@star-telegram.com <\/p>\n

Shreenesh, another second-grader, said it\u2019s helped progress his reading skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy favorite podcast has to be Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Partypooper,\u201d he declared.<\/p>\n

The podcast\u2019s title was inspired by the \u201cOnly Murders in the Building\u201d show streaming on Hulu and Disney Plus, starring Selena Gomez, Steve Martin and Martin Short. Although students probably haven\u2019t seen the show since it\u2019s meant for older audiences, Cooper thought parents would get a laugh out of the play on words.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do love that show, but I just thought it was a fun twist,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Moving forward, Cooper hopes she can continue the project beyond this semester. She highlighted the growth in reading her students have shown since the podcast started.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to teach our kids to read, then we teach our kids to love reading, and then we teach our kids to learn from reading. So we\u2019re kind of in that transition from learning to read to love to read,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cBy the time we\u2019re adults, we naturally want to share books that we love, and so I wanted them to start sharing the books that they love, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related Stories from Fort Worth Star-Telegram<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Lina Ruiz<\/a><\/p>\n

Fort Worth Star-Telegram<\/p>\n

Lina Ruiz covers early childhood education in Tarrant County and North Texas for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. A University of Florida graduate, she previously wrote about local government in South Florida for TCPalm and Treasure Coast Newspapers.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A class of Tarrant County second-graders are discussing books over microphones, broadcasting their reviews of popular children\u2019s series…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151,82115,19922,82114,3287,122],"class_list":["post-209463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news","tag-christi-cooper","tag-grapevine-colleyville-isd","tag-heritage-elementary","tag-literacy","tag-tarrant-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}