A Mid-Summer Reading Day At Sunrise Drive

Over 100 Sunrise Drive families participated in the first-ever Sunrise Drive Mid-Summer Reading Extravaganza by checking out 450 new books, listening to teacher read-a-louds, and participating in book discussions.

“The idea for this event,” Principal Rose Castello explained, “was developed by our librarian Alison McDermott and our reading specialist Mary Beth Dieterle.  Together they planned the Reading Extravaganza for the first Monday in August.  Everyone was so excited about encouraging students to read that more than twenty teachers volunteered to participate in the day’s events.”

In his book Summer Reading: Closing the Rich/Poor Reading Achievement Gap, author Richard Allington states:  “Children who fail to read during the summer break will lose some reading proficiency… The basic problem seems to be…access to books.”

Taking to heart this observation, Sunrise Drive Librarians, Ali McDermott and Kim Bronzino, wanted to encourage family literacy. They’d rather see books in the hands of their students than on the library shelves, especially when kids were at home for the summer. 

The tremendous response to the Mid-Summer Reading Extravaganza was extremely encouraging.  “The large turnout by our community,” Mrs. Dieterle said, “emphasizes the importance of our school library, reading over the summer, and conversations about books! Opening up our library during the summer to our families created a greater sense of community and emphasized the importance of home school connection.”

“It was wonderful to see so many children excited about summer reading!”  Principal Castello agreed.