Last school year, Diehl Elementary, a United Way community school, participated in Read Across America Day in a BIG way! Students gathered together in the halls of school to read collectively for 20 minutes, resulting in cumulative reading that energized students and staff! This year, Karen Donnelly, community school director, wanted to continue that effort and also expand it. Even though students are apart, they can read, together!
That's when Karen approached her Diehl community school leadership team to come up with a plan for celebrating reading on Read Across America Day and it was how the idea for Read Across Erie County was born! Thanks to Karen, the Diehl team, teachers and students for leading the charge on Read Across Erie County!
Research shows that reading for just 20 minutes a day makes children better readers and leads them on the path to success! That’s a message vitally important to United Way’s Raising Readers initiative and it’s also why, after talking together with Karen, United Way community schools throughout Erie County joined forces for collaborative reading time on the morning of Tuesday, March 2, Read Across America Day.
Research also shows that proficiency in reading by the end of third grade enables students to shift from learning to read to reading to learn, and to master the more complex subject matter they encounter in the fourth-grade curriculum. Most students who fail to reach this critical milestone falter in the later grades and often drop out before earning a high school diploma. Great job, Diehl!
Check out this photo slideshow from Read Across Erie County at Diehl Elementary!