Community leaders, board members, students, parents and staff visited all six Rome City Schools elementary schools on Friday, reading to classes from pre-K through sixth grade and helping spark a love of books and storytelling among young learners.
Literacy remains a priority for Rome City Schools and more than 150+ readers journeyed to all six elementary schools on Friday in honor of Read Across America Day. Those readers, transported classes from pre-K all the way to sixth grade to magical words and places and helped instill or promote a love of reading.
“Getting to read to students is like the highlight of our year. Next to shaking the kid’s hands at graduation, being able to go into classrooms and strike kids' curiosity about reading is just unbelievable,” Rome City Schools Superintendent Dr. Eric L. Holland said. “Literacy is so important to Rome City Schools. We always talk about lead by example, and that we want the kids to read. They need to see us read.”
Dr. Holland modeled by example, reading to a classroom at all six elementary schools throughout the day. Along with it, he brought his own brand of enthusiasm, ensuring the students were active participants in the stories he read.
That theme followed in classrooms at each grade level as readers acted out parts of books, implored students to help them in certain parts and some even brought stuffed animals representing characters from the books they were reading.
Rome Mayor Jim Bojo read “The Gingerbread Boy” to two different second grade classrooms at West End Elementary. By the end of the book in both classrooms, he had the students all reciting the book’s famous line, “You can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man.”
The enthusiasm from these students spilled over into Bojo’s reading, putting a big smile on his face as he had the opportunity to share his love for reading.
“I love being able to come out and read to kids. To be in this environment, and to see their enthusiasm is just great.” Bojo said. “If you can't read, you're in trouble. You’ve got to be able to read to get through life. I want them to know that reading is important, but there's more to reading than just reading. You can have fun doing it.”
In fact, fun was a common theme spread across the schools on Friday not only from the students but from the readers as well, who left with big smiles on their faces after reading and interacting with students.
Much like Bojo said, the schools and students made it fun with many teachers and students dressing up as book characters and several students wearing their red hats they’ve earned through Rome City Schools Red Hat Reader Program.
Guest readers came in all ages with some Rome Middle School football players reading to students, members from Rome High Schools Junior Air Force ROTC program reading books, along with parents of students, and even some parents of teachers. Rome City Schools staff and some board members even took part in the action.
Board Chair Faith Collins read to her granddaughter's class at West End Elementary and reveled in the experience.
“It’s hard to even describe how much fun it is reading to these students because you get to see their faces and how inspired and interested they are in the book. It’s just an honor for me to be able to read to them,” Collins said. “I’m hoping with the different literary initiatives that we have, that parents are reading to their kids or letting their kids read to them every night. We can tell from some of the test results that it has improved over the years. You can't do math without knowing how to read, you can’t do a lot of things in life without knowing how to read, so it’s very important.”
That joy was also felt by the students, many of whom, depending on their age, often ran up to and hugged their readers, thanking them. Those thanks not only come on the day they read but sometimes even weeks, months or years down the road.
“I’ll have students come up to me and tell me that they remembered me reading to their class. It's always good and rewarding to hear kids say that,” Dr. Holland said. “I’ve had students tell me because of me they read 30 minutes a day, and that’s huge. I want all of the students to read and keep reading.”