McHarg Elementary School recently finished its eighth annual One School, One Book, where every family and staff member reads the same chapter book aloud at home!
Thanks in part to the Woman’s Club of Radford, McHarg was able to purchase enough books for every family to receive a free copy of Fenway and Hattie by Victoria J. Coe.
One School One Book is a program created by Read to Them to spread the word that reading aloud to your children can and does have enormous impact on their literacy skills, and therefore, their school and life.
This is an even more important message now, as children are faced daily with so many visual and auditory stimuli from all kinds of technology. Reading aloud to children increases their vocabulary, their listening comprehension, their attention spans, and sharpens their imaginations.
“Fifteeen minutes a day is a small investment in time that yields substantial benefits for a lifetime – like a 401k vocabulary account for future literate success in life,” according to readtothem.org.
Each evening, families were asked to read one chapter to their students. This year’s book featured a Jack Russell terrier as the narrator, and so many families included their dogs in their read aloud time!
Parent Colleen Bartos said, “Our family loved reading this book together. It was great quality time and the kids enjoyed talking about Fenway and how he might be similar to our dog, Poppy. They especially wondered what names Poppy had for all of us. It was a great book for the whole family!”
Many families agree with Mrs. Bartos.
Elena Weightman said, “We truly enjoy reading “Fenway and Hattie” as a family, even the baby! We got a new dog for Christmas so the timing was perfect. I love the one-school-one-book season. It’s wonderful to also notice that my son would pay extra attention so he could try to guess what the trivia question would be at school the next day. Some days he was spot on!”
McHarg hosted a short book discussion on the morning announcement show, and invited special guests to join us.
Among those guests was RHS Assistant Principal Darden Freeman who said, “We really enjoyed Fenway and Hattie. It was great to come together each night as a family and share a few minutes and laughs with the whole family. Our kids love trying to guess what will happen in the next chapter and discussing the book with their classmates.”
McHarg thanks the Radford community for participating in this fun event, and invites all families to continue the read aloud fun!
