Promoting reading and reading programs at my school seems not to be a one man job - thankfully! Most of the reading incentive programs (how I feel about those is a topic for another day) are organized by several of our reading teachers - and boy, do they do a great job! From organizing an author visit to planning Read Across America, they are fantastic. Sure, I get involved in the discussions and help out when I can, but for the most part, they take the lead. This might be a good thing because they are far more organized than me!

This leads to me write about an event I attended at the school my children attend. Tonight was the second year of Camp Read-A-Lot. This outdoor event, put on by the media specialist and the reader teacher, is a variety of things, but mostly an event to promote reading. During the hour-long event, families brought their chairs or blankets and hung out on the lawn in front of the school - some of the children even wore their pajamas. We listened to a couple of stories read by the event organizers, sang a few campfire songs, and then had some time to read with our children. Oh, did I mention there were smores? In addition, children were encouraged to bring books from home that they no longer needed and then could add them to the Book Swap table. If you brought put a book on the table, you could take another back home with you.

It's a cool event, short, productive, and positive. I saw at least four classroom teachers at the event, with their own children, not "working" - which I thought was great.

I wonder if an event like this would be successful at my school?? I guess there's only one way to find out - tell the reading teachers to do it!

A little while ago, I spent time reading with my children before they went to bed. My first grader wanted to sit on my lap while we read Charlotte's Web together. Just prior to that, my almost-four year old picked out his book and I read to him while lying on his bed right next to him. While I was doing this, I thought about all of the stuff I had to do the rest of the night, but then realized how precious and important this time is to them - and me.

This got me thinking about the many students I will be seeing tomorrow when I head back to school after Spring Break. I know many of these students weren't able to have the moments with their parents like I just did with mine. Their parents weren't willing or didn't have the chance to see the smiles on their kids faces like I did. I would bet that for the 7 days off of school, very few students had the opportunity to have a moment like this. For whatever reason- the lack of both parents being home, lack of quality time parents want to spend with their kids, lack of reading ability, lack of books, etc., we need to somehow get the message across to our families that it's not just about the 15 minutes of reading time. It's about family time and showing the kids how much they are loved. This really can put them in a good frame of mind when coming to school. When they know they're going home to a place where they are wanted, they will feel better about themselves, probably work harder in school, do better on the tests, etc. That little bit of quality time parents spend with their children really does go a long way. As teachers, we see it - hopefully, some of the parents of our children will begin to see it as well. Like the Mastercard commercials say - this time is priceless.