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Read Across America Home & School Connection

My new position as District Elementary Reading Specialist carries a lot of hats.  I chose to make Read Across America a big deal for the elementary buildings for obvious reasons….1. It's a nationally recognized event. 2. It celebrates READING! 3. It was a perfect opportunity to help further align the elementary schools in a simple way.

One of the district wide initiatives was a home and school connection.  I wanted to involve our families to make the week more visible.  The week's theme in our district was from the quote "You're never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child".  This set the stage nicely for involving our parents.  Since it was the first time we held school wide events in one of he buildings it was important to lay the ground work for future events.

I did a couple of things to foster the home & school connection for the week…..

1. School Wide Bulletin Board! Honestly, this was A LOT of work for me but worth every minute.  I sent home a letter asking parents to send in a picture from home of their child reading with someone they love.  The response was great and for K-6 schools I was pleasantly surprised at how many people participated.  I organized the pictures with a collection envelope for each classroom teacher with printed directions.  The school secretaries had directions to forward the pics to my mailbox.  It was really helpful to have the students name and homeroom teacher on the back for returning purposes.  I also invited parents to email me their pictures if they didn't have printing capabilities.  I printed many pictures, but thankfully my principals let me do it at school (lots of ink).  Some staff included pictures too, which gave me a great idea for next year!

Here are some pictures of the bulletin board.  I had two (one at each building, but I only included one here b/c …..they were identical).

The smiley faces were added to protect identities:)




2. Notices out to families about school wide events.  I wanted to make sure that the families knew what was going on each day in their building.  This way if parents needed to send something in to school or dress their kiddos in a special way, it was clear.  When there is a lot going on, parents appreciate a detailed agenda of events!  Here is a sample of what I sent out at one of the buildings…..


These are just some of the ways we tried to make families feel included in our RAA events.  I have to give our RAA committees a lot of credit! At each building a brave group of teachers helped to organize and facilitate each event.  It would not have been a success if it weren't for that hard working group of teachers!  

As the reading specialist in my position I have to develop "buy-in" to rally everyone around an idea.   Committees are a great way to get different perspectives, ideas and HELP for events and/or initiatives.

I got a lot of great feedback about the events that were held at each building.  I also received support from parents who greatly appreciated the information and were excited about the RAA week happenings.  They are looking forward to next year, and I am too!

Thanks!






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