Nevada Reading Week celebrates books with school festivities

View File photoThe Cat in the Hat waves to students at Newton Elementary School, 571 Greenway Road, during a 2008 assembly to celebrate Nevada Reading Week. Schools across Clark County celebrated Nevada Reading Week this month. Advertisement

During March, Clark County schools celebrate Nevada Reading Week with a slew of activities.

The official celebration lands on the week that encompasses Dr. Seuss' birthday, which was March 2. Schools, however, are given the option of changing the week that they celebrate to better suit their calendar, or of not participating at all.

"It's a site-based decision," said Dan Ihnen, coordinator of library services for the Clark County School District.

The week actually was established about 30 years ago as a statewide initiative to help foster a love of reading in young children. While all schools are encouraged to celebrate, elementary campuses make up the bulk of the participants.

"Each week is Nevada Reading Week in the Clark County School District," Ihnen said.

Ihnen hopes that children, when they look back on fond memories of their school days, will include Nevada Reading Week festivities in that recall.

A large part of what schools do for the week includes bringing in guests from the community who read to the students. Readers are invited to bring a children's book of their own or borrow one from the school's library. Visitors have included parents, Mayor Oscar Goodman, Superintendent Walt Rulffes, Clark County School District board trustees and local celebrities.

Some schools have a mystery guest read via the public announcement system in the morning, then students guess who he or she is throughout the day.

"Every day usually has a theme," Ihnen said.

Some days, students wear their clothes backward, sometimes they wear their pajamas to school and sometimes they dress up as characters from Dr. Seuss books.

"To me, it's just also a week to celebrate libraries," Ihnen said. "The library should be the heart and soul of a school."

At Walker Elementary School, 850 Scholar St., librarian Karen Williams and other staff members work to ensure that Nevada Reading Week doesn't go by unnoticed.

Each morning, a passage from a book is read via the public announcement system. Students then are charged with guessing what novel the excerpt is from.

Walker students also participate in Drop Everything and Read, an exercise where everyone on campus has to carry a book at all times during the week. Then, when the time is called, everyone drops what they are doing and reads silently for 20 minutes.

"You never know when it's going to happen," Williams said.

Williams explained that everyone, including administrators, custodians and teachers, drop what they are doing to read, which reinforces the importance of the activity to the children.

"I just like that the kids get very excited and enthusiastic about reading," Williams said. "You can feel the whole energy is much higher."

During reading week, Williams and the Walker Elementary School staff also hosted a literacy night featuring author and storyteller Leticia Pizzino. Then it was the fourth- and fifth-graders' turn to be storytellers. The students performed stories that they had memorized onstage during an assembly.

"That's very cool," Williams said. "The kids get very excited about this."

For the community, the Springs Preserve held an event that featured children's author and weather anchor Kevin Janison reading to attendees after a scavenger hunt held at the preserve.

At Hal Smith Elementary School, 5150 E. Desert Inn Road, literacy specialist Jan Stowe cooked up a lively mix to keep kids interested in the week's main theme.

For example, classes partnered with each other to read during the day. Students brought a favorite book to share with someone from the other class. Each morning, teachers brought a poem with them to morning assembly, and one shared his or her poem with the school.

"Everybody gets into the reading mode," Stowe said.

The literacy specialist said the atmosphere around Hal Smith totally changes during Nevada Reading Week. Fifth-grade boys, who normally wouldn't be caught with a stuffed animal, bring them to school for an activity where students read to their furry loved ones.

"It's just the mood of that week," Stowe said.

For the 2009-10 academic year, the theme of Nevada Reading Week was "Pick a book from the reading garden." The reading initiative officially was celebrated March 1-5.

Contact View education reporter Laura Emerson at lemerson@viewnews.com or 380-4588.