This past week, many schools and day cares celebrated Read Across America Day, a national initiative supported by the National Education Association (NEA). Read Across America Day is the nation’s largest reading celebration, and this year it took place on March 2.
Since its inception, the NEA’s Read Across America program, designed to get kids excited about reading, has acted as a vehicle to talk about a serious issue in a fun way: children’s literacy.
This year, more than 45 million readers, both young and old, worked together to deliver a message: Kids who read, and who are read to, do better in school and help build great public schools. In fact, a recent reading assessment of fourth-grade students by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) found that reading for fun had a positive relationship to NAEP reading scores.
NEA’s Read Across America can also remind parents of the crucial role they play in their children’s education. Taking time to read with a child is one of the most important lessons that parents can share with their children. No matter the book, spending time reading together with children will cultivate happy memories that can last a lifetime.
For more information on NEA’s Read Across America, go to www.readacrossamerica.org for resources, recommended book titles, and ideas for reading events. The website provides a variety of diverse books and plenty of ideas for ways to celebrate reading throughout the year. This month you can celebrate National Reading Month, Women’s History Month, and Pi Day on March 14 with your reading choices.
Since Pi Day will arrive sooner than you can bake a pie, start building your reading list with some of these titles listed below. You can find these with the help from your local librarians at the Delaware County District Library — now with all locations open for public browsing!
• “Why Pi?” by Johnny Ball. Introduces the concepts of measurement and mathematics, discussing their use throughout history, along with examples of how they are used in everyday life in calculating temperature, light, electricity, time, music, and objects in space.
• “On A Beam of Light: A Story of Albert Einstein” by Jennifer Berne. Travel along with Einstein on a journey full of curiosity, laughter, and scientific discovery. Parents and children alike will appreciate this moving story of the powerful difference imagination can make in any life.
• “Navigating Early” by Clare Vanderpool. When Jack Baker’s father sends him from his home in Kansas to attend a boys’ boarding school in Maine, Jack doesn’t know what to expect. Certainly not Early Auden, the strangest of boys. Early keeps to himself, reads the number pi as a story, and refuses to accept truths others take for granted. Jack, feeling lonely and out of place, connects with Early, and the two become friends embarking on an adventure of a lifetime.
• “Archimedes: Mathematical Genius of the Ancient World” by Mary Gow. Profiles the life and accomplishments of the third-century B.C. Greek mathematician and inventor, including his geometrical discoveries, solar system model, and military machines.
