LCSD 55 Embraced Read Aloud to a Child Week

Reading aloud supports literacy in classroom instruction. Reading aloud helps students develop early literacy skills, social skills, and life skills. It also supports the learning of students with significant cognitive disabilities. When reading aloud, unfamiliar words become familiar to students, and thus, reading aloud builds students’ vocabulary. Studies on reading aloud by various researchers, such as researchers at Carnegie Learning, found that reading aloud increases fluency, comprehension, working memory, and active listening skills. Further, reading aloud builds social-emotional competencies. In the Carnegie Learning article, Say it Loud: 5 benefits of Reading Aloud in Your Room, reading aloud is said to send a “pleasure message to the brain” “sparked by feelings of happiness and self-worth caused by someone else investing time in our enjoyment.” 

Laurens County School District 55’s (LCSD 55) Superintendent, Ameca C. Thomas, Ph.D., leads the district in investing time in students’ learning and sparking feelings of happiness. LCSD 55 is holding Read Aloud with a Child Week this week, October 24–28, 2022. A class at each school in LCSD 55 welcomes a guest reader to do a read-aloud to students. Dr. Thomas will be visiting Waterloo Elementary. 

Beyond this week’s Read Aloud to a Child Week, LCSD 55 educators embed reading aloud in their instruction in meaningful ways. LCSD 55 invites members of the community to reach out to a school and volunteer to read. Ms. Balinda Mayfield, a first-grade teacher and former Teacher of the Year at Laurens Elementary School exclaimed, “We love guest readers!” after her class was visited this week by Faye Colley, LCSD 55’s Coordinator of Communications, to read the book Pumpkin Circle, which is tied to the class’ unit study on pumpkins. 

Parents, guardians, and family members are LCSD 55’s partners in education and are greatly encouraged to read aloud to their children and to continue to participate daily in the Just Take 30 reading initiative. Research shows reading at home at least 5 days a week for 30 minutes impacts a child’s success in school and beyond. As Superintendent Thomas puts it, “Reading opens pathways to so many opportunities in life.”