Drop Everything and Read on March 6 Offers Perfect Reason to Pick Up a Good Book

28 Feb 2002

Superintendent Mike Moses Will Read to Students at Lakewood Elementary School

DALLAS—Almost 30 city leaders will show their support for literacy as they take 10 minutes to participate in Drop Everything and Read-Dallas from 10 a.m. to 10:10 a.m. on Wednesday, March 6.

General Superintendent Mike Moses will read Thinking Big by Ben Carson, Dallas Chief of Police Terrell Bolton will read The Lost Son: A Life in Pursuit of Justice by Bernard B. Kerik, and Peter O'Donnell Jr. from the O'Donnell Foundation, will read A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar. In their own way, these city leaders are supporting literacy as they take 10 minutes out of their busy schedule to participate in Drop Everything and Read.

Drop Everything and Read, or DEAR, is sponsored by the Dallas Independent School District to encourage all Dallas citizens to stop activities for 10 minutes and dedicate time to silent reading. This is the fifth year the city of Dallas, including almost 164,000 DISD students , will participate in the event. DEAR is the highlight event of Texas Public Schools Week (March 4-8).

"Reading is the core of all learning," Moses said. "When our students' reading skills improve and parents take an active role in promoting reading at home, student achievement will increase and give our students the key tools they will need to be successful."

DEAR "with a twist" is what special education students at Seagoville High School will experience. Instead of silent reading, celebrity reader and library specialist Walter Betts will play his saxophone and read Mama Don't Allow by Thatcher Hurd to students.

Once DEAR time concludes, volunteers and community leaders serving as "Celebrity Readers" read aloud to students. As one of Lakewood's celebrity readers, Moses will read Wolf! by Becky Bloom to a class of second graders. The school is located at 3000 Hillbrook.

Other celebrity readers include, DISD Board Trustee George Williams, who will read to students at Seagoville Elementary School, and Trustee Roxan Staff, who also will read at Lakewood Elementary.

Companies, will read at Ben Milam Elementary, and Donna Halstead, a member of the Dallas Citizens Council, is the celebrity reader at Stonewall Jackson Elementary. Among other community leaders who have volunteered to read on Wednesday are Gustavo Gonzalez, a city of Dallas judiciary official, who will read at North Dallas High School; and Lorenzo Gray from Black Men Who Care who will read at W. W. Bushman Elementary.

Event sponsors are Half-Price Books, Dallas Public Library, Barnes and Noble and The Dallas Morning News. For more information about DEAR and Celebrity Readers, call Earlene Mills-House, (972) 925-4673.

Reading Tips

Parents of elementary-age children should provide reading materials in the home that raise curiosity and awareness of a child's surroundings.

• Establish a reading time, even if it is

only 10 minutes a day.

• Listen attentively as the child reads.

• Take turns. Read a paragraph and then have the child read the next.

• Talk about the stories read.

• Answer a child's questions about the stories, and ask questions to test their comprehension.

• Share time with children daily to write a few sentences in a journal.

• Establish one evening a week for reading instead of television viewing.