Greendale Elementary School recently hosted a Literacy Glow Night to promote reading- through fun activities including a book walk, scrabble wall, disco dance party and a chance to visit the Scholastic book fair. With a glow-in-the-dark outer space theme, the faculty at Greendale made reading an out-of-this-world experience.
“Greendale’s Literacy Glow Night is designed to bring families together to celebrate the importance of literacy in our lives. The activities bring reading to life and just make our scholars glow with excitement,” said Greendale Principal Caroline Barker.
K-2 reading interventionist teacher Jessica Daddario spoke about the importance of encouraging reading in children.
“We know that reading is really important with the kids and we’re trying to promote that interest in reading for all of the kids,” she said. “We’re trying to hand out free books to them so that we can encourage reading at home and just kind of extend that learning when they’re not in the classroom, just providing some fun for the families and everything.
“A lot of the books are from organizations that have donated books to us. We’ve had sponsors giving books to us and then a lot of them are books that we’ve had in our library that we’ve been able to donate to the students, as well,” Daddario added. “We’ve been funded a lot of money to buy books from Scholastic.”
Kristy Yaun, a parent and member of Greendale’s School Improvement Council, said her advice to other parents is to spend lots of time exploring literature with their children.
“Read to them. Read, read, read!” she said.
Reagan Landaverde, a third grader at the event, said that her favorite book is "Flying High" by Michelle Meadows.
“It’s about Simone Biles, how she was doing gymnastics at first and then at the end where she was in the Olympics,” said Landaverde.
Landaverde said this book inspires her “because I do gymnastics and I like reading about gymnastics a lot.”
Kindergartner Ansley Riley said that she loves books and that reading is important “‘cause it helps you learn.”
