A celebration of reading was enjoyed by the majority of students in the Escalon Unified School District on Friday, as schools observed Read Across America day.
The event is hosted in honor of the birthday of children’s author, Dr. Seuss.
Many classes had the chance to enjoy a ‘pajama day’ and bring in blankets and pillows from home to spend part of the day curled up with a book; many guest readers graced the local campuses to share their favorite stories; special craft activities were featured and some classes even got to eat some ‘green eggs and ham’ for breakfast.
At Van Allen Elementary, librarian Maria Dusi made the rounds of the classrooms dressed in pioneer garb, telling the students about her favorite author, Laura Ingalls Wilder of ‘Little House on the Prairie’ fame. She had several books by the author available and read some stories to the classes.
Principal Julio Zambrano also stopped in several classrooms to read.
“We have had a few readers,” said first grade teacher Jennifer Nelson. “It has been really good.”
She said her class had a goal to see how many AR, Accelerated Reader, quizzes they could take after reading books during the day, and they ended up with 40.
“It’s fun,” Nelson added. “And who doesn’t like Dr. Seuss?”
Zambrano said he enjoyed having guest readers come in from the community and said the students seem to like the special day.
Fifth grader teacher Jennifer Vick echoed the sentiments.
“The kids get to enjoy books and focus on reading all day,” Vick said. “They really enjoy having different readers come in and read to them.”
Student Ethan Jacobs said his favorite books are those in the Harry Potter series and the day was a good one.
“It’s nice to be left in peace and quiet to read,” he said.
“I just like being able to read a lot more than usual because I like reading,” added Annabelle Armstrong.
Fellow fifth grader Taylor Bruns listed J.K. Rowling as her favorite author and said she particularly enjoyed a ‘book tasting’ the class got to do, spending a few minutes ‘sampling’ the wide variety of book styles.
“There were different categories of books on the different tables,” Bruns said of ‘sampling’ the works. “You got to choose a genre you don’t normally read.”
