Evans Park Elementary Wraps Up Parents as Reading Partners With Play, Rockland Read-In

The Rockland Read-In is still over a week away for most of the county, but two Pearl River elementary schools will get an early start Friday.

The Rockland Read-In is sponsored by the Rockland BOCES School Library System to promote reading for pleasure among students in the county. The official day is Feb. 18, but Lincoln Avenue Elementary and Evans Park Elementary will hold their events this Friday.

Lincoln Avenue is combining its Read-In with a pajama day while Evans Park moved its day up to coordinate with the end of the Parents as Reading Partners (PARP) program, which started in January. PARP is a combined effort of parents and teachers to promote reading in school and at home. Every year, the PARP committee chooses a theme. This year's theme is, "Reading Can Open the Door to Your Imagination."

"They used castles and kingdoms and mideival things like that," said Rosemary Amabile, the librarian for Evans Park and Franklin Avenue Elementary Schools. "They do so much to get the kids excited."

Parents read with their children at home, but they also have the opportunity to come into school and read to entire classes as part of the program. Fitting with this year's theme, the children were asked to make a Coat of Arms with places for them to list their four favorite books and what each book helped them to imagine. The results are posted through the school.

Art teacher Tom Price organizes a play at the end of each PARP program, with parents and teachers performing for the students. This year's play will be at 9:30 a.m. Friday.

"It is always about getting them excited about reading," Amabile said. "It will have to do with kings and queens. That is Friday morning. Throughout the rest of the day, we will have the Read-In."

The teachers will keep track of the minutes spent reading, which Amabile will turn in to BOCES, which gives out awards to the schools based on total minutes reading and total minutes per student. Parents will come in to read to some classes, especially in the younger grades, and the teachers will keep track of the time spent reading in class.

"Tying it in with the parents makes a lot of sense," Amabile said. "You want reading to be an activity not just related to school."