Joining in the nationwide celebration of Read Across America, schools throughout MVSD hosted a week of events focusing on the power of literacy. National Read Across America Day is celebrated on March 2, the birthday of Dr. Seuss.
MVSD’s eight schools and preschool programs filled the week with activities promoting the importance and joy of reading. Guest readers were invited into classrooms to share a favorite book with students and included police officers, sheriff’s department personnel, city officials, local business people, Mt. View High school students, Longo Toyota/Longo Lexus team members, MVSD board members, school district staff and retirees, parents and volunteers.
Monte Vista School was happy to welcome South El Monte Mayor, Gloria Olmos as a guest reader. Mayor Olmos shared the importance of learning to read and encouraged the students to read, and read often.
“It’s extremely important to be able to read well,” said Olmos. “Every profession requires some sort of reading and the more you read the more you learn to love it. Whenever I was facing a challenging time as child I would go to my favorite tree and read, it would take me away.”
Reading is Out of This World was the theme for Payne School’s Read Aloud Week. The outer space themed reading room was created by Payne School’s Community Liaison, Nellie Huerta and her team of parent volunteers. Along with celebrating reading, it recognized Women’s History Month with a balloon statue of the first Latina Astronaut, Ellen Ochoa.
“We appreciate all of our guest readers for giving their time to our students,” said Dr. Aileen La Corte, Payne School principal. “Not only does this experience motivate our students to read every day, but more importantly, it creates a memory that they will have forever.”
At Maxson School, Dive into Reading was the theme. The Read Aloud Committee, including Diana DeCamp, Susan Razook, Cecilia Fonseca and Maria Chairez, along with parent helpers did an amazing job with the ocean themed event. Guest readers were welcomed to the Reader’s Reef complete with decorations of sea creatures and plants that call the ocean home. A beautiful submarine photo prop was created by MVSD maintenance worker, Manuel Larriva. The Maxson Falcons and all the guest readers had a “whale” of a time during the Dive into Reading celebration.
The Parkview Eagles showed they are Wild About Reading by taking part in fun themed activities like Wild Socks Day, Wild Hair and Hat Day, and Wild Animal Print Day. Among the guest readers at Parkview were middle school AVID students, parent volunteers, and board members.
Joining in the reading fun, dressed as popular Dr. Seuss characters, Longo Toyota and Longo Lexus team members visited all of the District’s Kindergarten classrooms to read and passed out pencils and erasers to each student and presented each teacher with a boxed set of Dr. Seuss books for their classroom.
MVSD Board Member, Cindy Wu happily participated in each school’s read aloud day, reading to over 20 classes throughout the week.
“I had a great time at all the read aloud events,” said Wu. “It was so enjoyable to be in the classrooms and share the importance of reading with the students.”
Adding to the fun week, many schools hosted pajama days where students wore their PJ’s to school and snuggled up with a good book, took their reading outside for reading on the lawn, and held book cover art contests and fun literacy games. A few schools also held their Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) book distributions where students selected a free book to take home.
“Our teachers, classified staff members, administrators and volunteers do a fantastic job with our Read Across America events, instilling a love of reading in our students and creating wonderful memories around literacy,” said Dr. Raymond Andry, Superintendent, who read in several classrooms. “As a District we are happy to participate in Read Across America, partnering educators, parents, librarians, mentors and community members to read with students and give them a lifelong gift of learning.”