It wasn’t the Robert Frost classic, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” that had Sayville elementary classes at Sunrise Drive joining the annual Jumpstart’s Read for the Record campaign, but it was pretty close. Students and adults who chose to participate in this national read-along on the designated day were actually entertained by The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.

To raise global awareness, Jumpstart draws attention to the crisis in early childhood education and literacy with this nationwide campaign. Each year, they try to set a new world record “for the largest shared-reading experience on a single day.” The Read for the Record website states, “Today, half of the children from low-income neighborhoods start school two years behind their peers. Research shows that when these children start behind, they stay behind.” Enlisting more and more participants every year, Read for the Record hoped to top two million participants for its 5th Annual reading program this year.

Adding their numbers to the total, some Sunrise Drive classes participated. Again this year, Mrs. Bridgette Norman’s Fourth-graders and Ms. Nina Baio’s Kindergarteners classes united for the annual Read for the Record program. “My students read to the little ones,” Mrs. Norman explained, “and later, they did a craft together. Last year, we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and had tremendous fun.” In addition, the Second-grade classes of Mrs. Heather Franze-Heuer and Mrs. Barbara Ruppert also incorporated the reading activity into their day.

Every little bit helped. According to the latest announcement on the  Read for the Record’s website, they succeeded in topping two million with a grand total of 2,057,513 readers celebrating the designated day of reading.