In honor of World Read Aloud Day, I thought I would share a photo of my grandmother reading The Night Before Christmas to me. From a young girl, I wanted to be a writer. But, I never imagined back then, one day that I would grow up and write my own Christmas book. Goosies!
Reading is extremely important, not only for pleasure but for developing skills needed in everyday life. When reading aloud, you can put so much expression in the voice as the story unfolds. Children love being read to and when they can read, they love reading to others.
In 1998, while I was teaching at St. John’s Preschool and Kindergarten in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, I implemented a reading program in my class that I penned, Book-A-Day. This would help promote children’s reading literacy in my classroom and to get young children interested in reading every day. I found that young children had much more interest in story time when it was made part of a daily schedule. Instead of my students just bringing in a book on Show & Tell Day, every day of the school week, children took turns bringing in a book. It was an easy plan to establish… because I simply asked the child who had the turn to bring in the snack of the day– to also bring in a book. I found that the interest was two-fold in story time, and while teaching for three years at St. John’s, I kept the Book-A-Day program in place, in my classroom. Book-A-Day is a reading literacy awareness effort that I hope to make every preschool and kindergarten class aware of.
Now go read!
–Virginia
VIRGINIA WRIGHT is the author of Timothy the Christmas Mouse and the companion book, Timothy the Christmas Mouse Coloring Book For Children.
http://www.amazon.com/author/virginiawright
