DECATUR - Dad and daughter sit side by side, reading a book about the "old lady who swallowed a fly," then swallowed a spider to catch the fly, then swallowed a bird to catch the spider and so on.

"She ate a lot, didn't she?" Dad, also known as Eric Newbon, asked his 5-year-old daughter, Addison.

Afterward, Addison remembered the order of the eaten items well enough to place Velcro-backed versions of the animals in the tale onto a cutout version of the lady.

Though the Newbons read together at home, they weren't at home on this occasion. They were in the studio at the Decatur Area Technical Academy acting in a video that will be included in the district's new "Look and Learn" program. Filming and technical duties were handled by tech academy instructor Gayle Bowman and senior Courtney Hockaday.

Invented by teacher Jill Davis, Look and Learn will have a test run in five elementary schools this year and, if successful, could be expanded to all the Decatur elementary schools the following year.

A bag full of reading activities will be sent home with kindergartners and will include books, games and toys to encourage parent/child interaction. The bag also will include a DVD demonstrating the activities and a portable DVD player. Each family will keep the bag for a few days and send it back to school to be passed on to another family.

"Basically, it's to help parents help their children with schoolwork at home," Davis said. "In today's society, parents have so many things going on, and it's very difficult for them to come to school for conferences and parent nights and parent education programs, with baby sitters and work schedules. This program is to be very easy and convenient for a parent to implement."

Davis recruited parents and children in the district to serve as models for the DVDs, a different one for each of the Look and Learn bags. There will be four kits, each concentrating on a different aspect of literacy, and kids will take home two each semester.

Newbon and Addison had no script to follow, but clearly Addison knows all about reading books. She even recognizes a few words, though she's just going into kindergarten herself. At the end of the session, dad and daughter exchanged a high five and a hug.

"That's my girl," Newbon said.

vwells@herald-review.com| 421-7982.