Justin Cook | The Roanoke Times

Maria Eakin, a Radford University student teacher at Price’s Fork Elementary School, helps test part of music teacher Eric Young’s bass marimba. Last week, all students at the school got a chance to chip in and sanded 18 slabs of mahogany to create the marimba.

Students in grades K-5 chiseled away at 18 different mahogany bars to top a bass marimba designed by former Augusta County music teacher Brent Holl.

For years, Holl has worked with schools to build the instruments. The project at Price’s Fork is his 14th instrument.

It’s first-hand craftsmanship that can help students learn the most, he said.

Last year, Holl worked on a similar project with Crystal Spring Elementary School in Roanoke.

Music teacher Eric Young received a $1,200 grant from Montgomery County Schools to get the schoolwide project at Prices’s Fork off the ground.

Younger students sanded down the bars of the marimba while older students used a chisel and mallet to pry up the pieces of wood that create the different pitches of the instrument.

Fourth-grader Christian Vance said he had the most fun whacking away at the wood because it gave him something to do with his hands.

The project helped to make music fun, he said.

Students signed the underside of each of the instrument’s bars.

Radford University to work on reading instruction

Radford University’s College of Education and Human Development received a $33,573 grant that will fund a project designed to help teachers identify struggling readers.

Their project, “Teach for Achievement: Data-based decision-making for content area reading instruction,” is part of a group of state grants handed down through the No Child Left Behind legislation.

According to the project description, the grant focuses on “providing educational professionals with increased skills and knowledge in the following areas: identification of struggling readers in grades 3-5, research-based instruction and interventions for content area reading, use of problem-solving data to identify special reading needs, progress monitoring and data based decision-making.”

Radford professor Jennifer Jones will be working with teachers in Roanoke on the project.