Hood '12 Leads America Reads Effort
15 November 2011 Hood 12 Leads America Reads Effort
Most college students spend a lot of time reading books. Most of those books, however, dont have very many pictures and rarely include titles such as Llama, Llama Red Pajama. In order to read books in that category HWS students have to participate in America Reads.
This fall, HWS America Reads program participated in the nationwide Read for the Record campaign sponsored by Jumpstart. Read for the Record is an annual event oriented towards raising awareness about the importance of reading to kids. Each year a single book is chosen to be read in libraries, schools, afterschool programs, and homes around the country in an attempt to break the world record for number of children being read to at the same time.
This year that book was Llama, llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney and past books include classics such as The Little Engine that Could, The Story of Ferdinand, Corduroy and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. During the 2010 campaign more than two million children were read to making it the largest shared reading experience in history.
At HWS, more than 90 students are involved in America Reads programs at seven different locations throughout Geneva. Hannah Hood 12 is the 2011-12 Civic Leader for Literacy through the Center for Community Engagement and Service Learning as well as the site coordinator at West Street Elementary School. As such, Hood was responsible for coordinating the events surrounding the Read for the Record campaign at HWS.
At each site, Hood worked with a group of HWS students to create a whole day of events related to Llama llama Red Pajama including creating pictures of what they thought Llama Llama (the young llama around whom the story is centered) dreamed about once he finally settled down to sleep.
The experience allowed the students to really think about the story, ask questions, and apply it to their own life, Hood said. Many of the students had never read the story, but had read others in the series which helped them think about how Llama Llama would think.