My students in prekindergarten through grade 2 participated in JumpStart’s again this year.  “Jumpstart is a national early education organization that recruits and trains college students and community Corps members to serve preschool children in low-income neighborhoods. Threir curriculum helps children develop the language and literacy skills they need to be ready for kindergarten, setting them on a path to close the achievement gap before it is too late.” Through its Read for the Record event, JumpStart  promotes early literacy, and encourages teachers, librarians, parents, and students around the world to read the same book on the same day in support of early literacy.

JumpStart’s Read for the Record 2016 book.

This year’s picture  book was The Bear Ate Your Sandwich by Julia Sarcone-Roach, and it was read by over 2.35 million adults and children! But did the bear really eat your sandwich? Read it together, and find out!  If you would like to read the online version of the book, please visit here  (scroll to the bottom of the web page to find the book in both English and Spanish).For additional teacher resources, click here.

One of my 2nd grade classes even had the chance to connect with a 2nd grade class at Orchard Elementary School in Vermont – the media specialist, Donna Sullivan-MacDonald, and I alternated reading the pages of the book to each other’s students.  What fun!

Did you know? It is important for parents to read aloud 15 minutes every day to their children – from birth all the way through school-age. According to the Academy of Pediatrics, “This time together has a powerful impact on children’s development because it strengthens their relationships with their parents and caregivers, the most important people in their world. A great deal of research supports this statement, yet fewer than half of children younger than age 5 in the United States are read to daily.” Here is some recent data on the importance of parents reading aloud to their children.  I encourage all parents to spend 15 minutes a day reading aloud with their children – it is time well spent – and priceless, too!