Build Community, Share Joy: The Gift of Reading

This post is about a reading-culture event. You will find:

• Information about a Gift of Reading event.

• Principles for leading and teaching to build a thriving reading culture.

The month of December welcomes one of our district-wide reading culture events called The Gift of Reading.  

Each day throughout the month, a book recommendation is revealed to students.  Book recommendations are submitted in November prior to the celebration from students and teachers in grade-level bands: PreK, K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12.  The ways in which they are revealed each day vary:

• In grades PreK-5, teachers access and open a shared slide deck on the screen or SMARTBoard in their classrooms.  Each day, a slide is added to the deck that includes the book recommendation of the day.  A book cover appears after teachers “tap” a digital gift box and it fades away.  

• In grades 6-8, students watch a brief video of a teacher providing a book talk about the book recommendation of the day.  

• In grades 9-12, the live daily morning announcements show includes the book recommendation of the day in the daily news.  The student news anchor introduces the book while showing the cover.  All students watch the show daily.    

By revealing a new book each day, reading culture continues to build and in some cases, develops new aspects of culture among school and class communities.  

In my book Leading A Culture of Reading: How to Ignite & Sustain a Love of Literacy in Your School Community, I introduce principles of reading culture-building and how they can be the framework to developing thriving reading spaces in schools.  Four of the principles are:

Reading is important. 

Engagement is important. 

Joy is important.

Community is important. 

Schools and classrooms should be joyful spaces where there is a sense of belonging within the community.  There should be excitement and interest in learning.  When you define the principles from which you want to lead your school or class to build engagement, all actions serve to embody the principles.  Reading can be a catalyst to rally around.  

Here is how a celebration like the Gift of Reading brings the principles to life:

Reading is important: Students are exposed to a new book recommendation every day.  Some of the titles may be new and others may be favorites.  As teachers and peers reveal the books each day, they are reading champions and signal that books and reading are important (and fun!). 

Engagement is important:  Some teachers share with me that students are eager to read the books that are revealed as their independent reading books or with their reading partners.  One of the goals is to avail titles to readers to put on their “to read” list to promote a commitment to reading among students.  

Joy is important: Students look forward to seeing the book recommendation that is revealed each day.  I was in the school library one day and two students were thrilled to find two Gift of Reading book recommendations on the shelves.  On a different day, I was walking through the hallway and heard three students talking about the Gift of Reading book of that day while walking back from art class. Some elementary and middle school classes have a countdown each day right before the book gets revealed on the screen.  One student even made his own version of the Gift of Reading celebration.  

Community is important: This year, there are a few classes that have joined together to engage in partner reading with the Gift of Reading book recommendations.  Second graders joined friends in PreK to read together.  First graders partnered with Kindergarten friends to read together.  A parent shared with me that her two children talk about the Gift of Reading books at home because they are in the same grade-level band and love that they get to see the same book each day. While the intended community aspect is to invite all school community members to rally around a district-wide celebration, smaller reading communities have formed as students gathered to read and celebrate the books together.  

The Gift of Reading celebration requires stages of planning and organization as it invites students, teachers, and administrators to rally around a shared celebration.  Culture-building is not easy, but when the culture invites school community members to share in a celebration of a community's values, amazing things can happen that illuminate the principles from which you are leading and teaching.  

Reader: If you are a teacher or administrator that is part of the Gift of Reading celebration in our schools, I share my deepest gratitude with you for supporting and/or sharing this reading culture event!