On Friday, Jan. 24, members of the Fredericton community gathered once again for the annual Hubbard Elementary School Read-In.
During the Read-In, a broad cross section of the local community, including parents, members of the military, local athletes, and government officials, read stories to students to instill in them a love of reading. The event was established in 1999 by ABC Life Literacy Canada to honour Family Literacy Day, which happens every Jan. 27.
After a kick-off assembly in the gym featuring a speech from New Brunswick Lt.-Gov. Louise Imbeault, and a performance of the Wolastoqey-language version of the Mi’kmaq honour song by students, guest readers and students went to assigned classrooms for storytime.
Guest readers are a hit
“I liked meeting people that are important to our society,” said Grade 5 student Alex Beyer, who is a fan of graphic novels. “My favorite novel right now is the Wild Robot [series by Peter Brown].”
Beyer, an avid reader also loves Lauren Tarshis’ I Survived series, a series of books written for children about real-world disasters with such titles as I Survived the Black Death, 1348, I Survived the Battle of D-Day, 1944, and I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 1912.
“I liked how everybody showed their favorite books from [their] childhood, and what they read to their children,” said Madelyn Forney, another Grade 5 student.
Forney is a reader leader at the school who said her parents read to her every night. “My favourite books personally are [Rachel Renée Russell’s] Dork Diaries series and [Ann M. Martin’s] Baby-Sitters Club.”
Guest reader Johann Crombach, a Canadian Army engineering officer, brought along two books he reads to his own daughter, a student at the school: Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty, and Lila Greer, Teacher of the Year by Andrea Beaty and David Roberts.
Both books reinforce the value of belief in oneself and not letting initial failures stop anyone from achieving their goals.
“My daughter just came to the school this year, so I’m happy to do these sorts of things,” Crombach said. “The books I brought today are about anxiety, overcoming anxiety, and overcoming failure. And it was an excellent starting point for the conversation: ‘Oh, how did she deal with that?’”
Students are often more receptive to certain lessons in the stories, he said, than they would be hearing those same lessons from their parents.
“If I tell her about how I overcame failure, it’s just daddy saying, ‘do this.’ But if something happened to somebody else in a story, then it’s much more fascinating to them.”
Guest reader Curtis Edmondson, a paramedic who teaches the paramedic course for Medavie Health Services New Brunswick, was impressed by the cross section of community members who came to read.
“I always read to my kids every night, and I think it’s just super important to expose kids to reading, for them to see a lot of different demographics involved in reading,” said Edmondson, who read Robert Munsch’s Get Out Of Bed! to students.
“Our students have lots of role models and to see them engaging in some print reading and just engaging in that process; I’m not sure students get as much of that today,” Hubbard Elementary School Principal Kurt Stiles said.
“To have 49 adults in our school, reading to our kids, is great to see.”
