Read Across America: Celebrating with Guest Readers!

Everybody wants our kids to be readers. Like, everybody in the world- it’s important to people other than us! Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way, like when you’re giving another state required test, or when you’re having to defend your independent reading time (I’ve heard this happens). But people in the community actually want our kids to read. So why not capitalize on that?

Looking for a fun family literacy night event to celebrate Read Across America with your families? Check out Read Across Your School, a Family Literacy Night resource that helps you plan your event from start to finish!

This year, we invited retired teachers, preservice teachers, and community members to come read aloud to our kids throughout our Read Across America week-long celebration!

First, we set up our reading lounge (a brand-new school initiative: a comfy place for classes to read!) with cute Seuss stuff. Our librarian found a volunteer to put up some Seuss decorations. She also arranged some hospitality like cookies, snacks, and coffee for our guests.

This room served as our “green room” for readers!

Our librarian also set up a table full of book selections for our readers. She chose a variety of books and created baskets: English titles, Spanish titles (we live in a bilingual community), and Seuss titles. Honestly, not everyone can read Seuss aloud – he’s quite a challenge – so she likes to have all types of books for readers to choose from!

In the month before our celebration, our librarian ceaselessly contacts people from our community. This year, for retired teachers, she called the retired teacher association. For preservice teachers, she spoke to the dean of education from our university. And for community members, she called every news station, law enforcement agency, and any other individual she could reach through word of mouth!

Some of our friends served as beautiful guest readers. My husband, a videographer/photographer, our dear friend, a counselor,

another of our friends, the constable,

and my friend the public librarian all came to read aloud to our kids.

The mascot, Chico, from our local minor league baseball team, the El Paso Chihuahuas, also came to read aloud to our kids! He brought his buddy and they read a cute book adapted from Curious George Goes to the Ballpark. The kids could not stop laughing.

We also hosted Rick Cabrera, a newscaster, and Mark Negrete, an author.

Overall, I think we had about 30 retired teachers, 20 preservice teachers, and over 35 community members. That’s incredible! Our librarian is the best!

Each reader left with a small token of our appreciation: a notepad, pencil, pen, and pin, all tied up with adorable Seuss ribbon we found at Wal-Mart.

This is my hunnybun reading aloud – clearly with lots of expression – to a third grade class. He chose to read The Day the Crayons Quit because when he read it, he couldn’t stop cracking up! He (and the kids) especially liked the page where the peach crayon is naked. Because he has the sense of humor of an eight-year-old boy.