[LM_NET] HIT: Community Readers?

[Toni Buzzeo <tonibuzzeo@TONIBUZZEO.COM>]

ORIGINAL QUERY:  I'm working on a Dear Mrs. 
Skorupski article about hosting a Community (or 
Famous) Readers Day and was wondering what you 
all have done either on Read Across America or 
another day in which you brought in community readers.

Who have you had come to read at your school? How 
did you get them to come? How did you organize 
the day? What should folks be sure to do? What should folks AVOID? :>

RESPONSES: Always contact the newspaper (send an 
article already written). Make buttons.

Basic: I slotted out time periods and got on the 
phone (which works much better than letters) and 
called people in community to be Very Important 
Reader.  Every half hour­20 min reading time and 10 min. transitions.

Watch for: 1) Just because adults know them 
doesn’t mean kids do.  State Senator may be okay 
for 5th graders but NOT for K.  Mayor is great 
for third graders but not for K.  Cross walk 
guard important to everyone, including K.  Popularity is important!

Have someone RELEVANT.


Logistics: ž     Afford them respect (principal 
always greeted each and every person who came and 
escorted them down).  That made a whole lot of 
difference because speakers came back year after 
year. ž     Had coffee for them and treated them 
special. ž     Don’t take them to the room.  Have them in the library.

INVASION: Whole college football invaded the 
school and fanned out two at a time to each room 
and read and answered questions. VERY IMPORTANT 
to pre-select hand-selected titles.  Lots of time 
for older kids chose poetry books.  For younger 
grades, a picture book.  Post-it notes on each 
book for the room it was assigned to.  When they 
chose a book, that determined where they would go. Must find a willing coach.

Same kind of invasion with the Very Important 
Readers.  People from the neighborhood community, 
more local. ONE time slot only for everyone.

GOES WITH AUTHOR VISITS: When you can’t afford an 
author visit, choose someone who is a Very 
Important Reader and treat them just like a 
visiting author in preparing for them.

What were your 10 favorite books (as a child, 
now, to read to your children)? Read all these 
books and have kids prepared to interact with the person around these books.

This is hard schoolwide unless it’s someone who is pretty widely experienced.

But as a classroom level, you can do it with many different people.

Student-of-the-Day/Week: Sometime during that 
week, invite the child to ask any adult they wish 
to come to school and read one of THEIR jointly 
favorite stories (parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, favorite neighbor).

***

Who have you had come to read at your school?
College sports teams ( I live in a university town),
local officials (mayor, police, newspaper editor, etc.),
semi-renowned folks who live in town.

How did you get them to come? Just asked - no 
money or perks involved other than publicity

How did you organize the day?  Depended on the 
activity and grade level ( elem vs. jhs).  Just 
make sure that you provide enough wiggle room for 
readers who show up late or not at all. What 
should folks be sure to do? Thank them, thank 
them, thank them.  Publicize it so that at least they get some positive press.

What should folks AVOID? :>  Either provide them 
with suggestions of appropriate selections or 
assign them things to read.  The first year I did 
it with the football players was a disaster 
because I didn't have them read the selection 
first and they got into the classrooms and had 
trouble with some of the words.  Honest-to-Pete, 
how'd they get into university!

*** I have done Read Across American/Dr. Seuss 
day for several years.  My best experience with 
the program is when I invited college professors, 
retired teachers and principals, parents, and 
local elected officials.  I must say that all did 
not come of course, but the ones that did made it 
a great day.  I prepared a continental breakfast 
and kept the coffee available.  The readers told 
me times that they were available and the grade 
level they wished to read.  I told them to bring 
their favorite book or they could choose one from 
the library.  Of course, I had to change reading 
levels for some readers.  In the elementary 
setting most readers want to read to Pe-K thru 
2nd grade.  I had students to escort the readers 
to their classes.  I made a schedule for each 
reader telling them grade levels and room 
numbers.  After the reading which lasted most of 
the morning, I treated them to a school trinket 
(small wooden desk with school name and a 
pen).  A few readers could only come in the 
afternoon.  I made schedules for them too.  All 
teachers knew when to expect their readers.

****

We have celebrated a whole school  reading event 
for Read Across America for the past 8 years.

In January we send an email inviting community 
leaders ( Selectman, Fire & Police Chiefs, etc.) 
Board of Education members, Central Office Staff 
( Superintendent, Coordinators, etc.), special 
guests, (former teachers, local government 
members, neighbors, celebrities, public library 
staff and members of our families to come and 
read their favorite book to our students.  We ask 
the potential readers if they would like to come 
and read, what time would be best for them and if 
they have a grade preference to read to.  They 
can either call or email us with that 
information.  We do ask that they reply by a 
certain date.  We schedule on a first come first serve basis.

About one week after the email has gone out to 
the community we invite parents via the weekly 
school newsletter to come and read. We have found 
that if you invite everyone all at once parents 
respond right away and there is not enough room 
for the community members to come in and 
read.  We feel that parents can come in at any 
time to read and as we do not want to leave them 
out this is an  great opportunity for the 
community members to come into the school and 
read  and the children have the opportunity to have different readers.

As the replies are received the scheduling 
begins.  We try and honor all time/grade requests 
and schedule 4 readers per class.  If a class 
fills up we keep a waiting list on hand and have 
put it to good use in the past as sometimes at 
the last minute there are cancellations.  We try 
to schedule 2 parents and 2 community readers for every class.

After a reader is scheduled I send them an email 
letting them know the time/class they will be 
reading to and ask them to let me know if 
anything changes  in their schedule and I will 
contact them if anything changed in ours.

In mid-February I send the readers a printed 
confirmation confirming the date, time and class.

There are often last minute changes or 
cancellations but I can usually find a staff 
member to fill in.  All staff is encouraged to 
read to the students as well on that day.

On the actual day we decorate the school in red & 
white in honor of Dr. Seuss and put up thank you 
signs with the readers names on them.  A table is 
set up in the front hall of the school and is 
staffed by PTA volunteers. As this is an all day 
event we have two volunteers for the morning and 
two for the afternoon. They meet and greet the 
readers and help them find their way to the 
classrooms.  At the sign in table there are schedules
( by time and also by teacher) a specially made 
name tag ( with a Seuss character on it and the 
name of the reader) a certificate of appreciation 
signed by the principal and a button with the 
theme, school name and date on it for each 
reader.  The buttons are made on the computer, 
laminated, cut out and pins are attached to the 
back.  Volunteers help us with the pins.  On the 
table there are also crates full of new books for 
the readers to choose from if they have not brought a book with them to read.

It took us a few years, but we finally figured 
out that the two of us could not do this whole 
school event by ourselves and enlisted more help 
on the actual day beyond the sign in table.  A 
group of PTA volunteers are scheduled throughout 
the day to take pictures of the readers and the 
children.  The end result is a collage that I put 
together of our special day.  These pictures are 
hung out side of the Media Center.  Everyone 
enjoys looking at the readers and the children over the years.

The key to the day is support and 
organization.  It takes a lot of work before the 
day to make this a smooth running event.  Over 
our 8 years of doing this we have had our 
schedules turned upside down by snow storms, 
early release days, flooding and emergencies at 
other schools but we have managed to do the best 
we can with the help of the staff and 
parents.  Our biggest disappointment was this 
past March 2nd when school was cancelled by a 
huge snow storm.  We do not schedule a rain/snow 
date as it is hard enough to schedule 100 plus 
people the first time let alone twice.  All of 
the work that was done to plan this event went into a box and put away.

With that unfortunate cancellation behind us we 
have decided to do a whole school reading event 
in November this year and see how that 
goes.  Hopefully the weather will cooperate. We 
will use the same format as we do in March but 
use the theme of “A School Full of Readers” .  We 
plan to celebrate Read Across America on a much 
smaller scale in March with 1 reader per grade 
level so there would be 6 readers to schedule.

It is a very busy day for us but the best part is 
hearing the kids tell us who read to their class 
and the books they heard during the day.  We 
encourage all classes to write thank you notes to the readers.

This is a joint effort between the Media 
Specialist and myself, although I handle all of 
the scheduling and the organization of the day.

***

We are an elementary campus (K-5) of slightly 
over 1200 students in 60 classrooms. For Monday, 
March 9 – more convenient than March 2 for us – I 
organized approximately 50 readers from the 
community to read on campus. Not included in this 
number are approximately 25 others organized by 
individual teachers for their own classes. These 
include school people like myself and the 
principals, parents and grandparents, husbands 
and wives, and friends. Each reader introduced 
themselves and read at least one story to one 
group of students. Some readers read more than 
one story. Some readers read to more than one 
group. The day was pronounced a huge success by 
readers, teachers, and students. “Let’s do it again!!!”

1.      I polled the teachers – by email – to 
determine who would be interested in 
participating. All were, except a few of the 5th grade teachers.
2.      I developed a matrix to match 
pre-scheduled time slots with interested 
teachers. I also made note of any special teacher 
requests for reading material (Dr. Seuss, excerpt 
from Bluebonnet book, excerpt from book being 
read in class, any picture book, etc.) at this time.
3.      Began contacting people to invite them to 
read. Special announcement/invitation to read or 
only listen home with students. Blurb in school 
newsletter. Blurb on library website. Letter to 
the editor about reading with information about 
volunteering for our special reading day. Spoke 
directly to my regular library story time people. 
Gave information – verbal and posters - out at my 
church and recruited co-workers to do the same at 
their churches. One of my regular readers, the 
Presbyterian minister, carried the information to 
the monthly ministerial alliance (ministers of 
all denominations in town) meeting to make sure 
we didn’t miss anyone. I phoned all the banks in 
town and spoke to the people in charge about 
them, or a designated volunteer, coming to read. 
I invited business owners/managers, school board 
members, county officials, city officials, the 
Chamber of Commerce manager, the community 
college president and faculty, high school 
students from our mentoring program, high school 
athletes, retired teacher group, hospital 
auxiliary  – anyone that was recommended to me – 
either by mail, phone, face-to-face, or combination of these.
4.      As interested persons committed and we 
made arrangements, I interviewed them about their 
preferences – time, length of time, preferred age 
group, type of material, do they have a favorite 
to share or should we pick something.
5.      I then matched my reader preferences with 
my teacher requests on my grid. Amazingly enough, 
I got everyone satisfied without jumping through 
flaming hoops. It helped to have several flexible 
teachers that said anytime was fine, just let 
them know. It helped to know that the high school 
people only had 1 certain time window. It helped 
that many of the parents and grandparents said, 
“oh, I don’t work – I can come anytime.”
6.      When I got everything worked out, I gave 
teachers a copy of the grid with their time(s) 
and reader’s names highlighted so they would know 
what to expect. I confirmed information with reader’s that requested that.
7.      On the actual day, I set up a welcome 
area in the front foyer and scheduled it to be 
staffed by at least one member of library staff 
all day. We had fun, informational signage. 
Readers (even the ones arranged by individual 
teachers themselves) signed in with name, 
address, phone # and received a special name tag. 
I had arranged to bypass the usual office sign-in 
procedure. If the reader had requested that we 
choose material, we had selections labeled and 
ready to go. For some of the excerpts, I included 
a book talk-type introduction or epilogue for the 
reader and page #s to read. We sent treats for 
readers to distribute to students to which they 
read – bookmarks, pencils, stickers, etc. We 
answered any questions and gave suggestions if 
needed. Depending on the reader, we either gave 
them a map of the building marked with their 
route (those familiar with the students and 
building) or escorted them and introduced them to classes.
8.      We had a hospitality room set up in the 
conference room (adjacent to the welcome area) 
stocked with cookies(made, not bought), fruit, 
coffee, water, soft drinks for when readers finished.
9.      I personally sent a hand-written thank 
you note to all participants that I had 
contacted. Teachers did the same for those they 
contacted. Some had students do a thank you 
something – notes, or sign the card, or a poster for display in the business.

It sounds like a lot of work when I read it here, 
but it was not difficult, just steady. I started 
early – initial teacher participation poll about 
3 weeks in advance. Obviously, many people’s 
schedule will not permit them time between 9-3 to 
come to school, but we had a nice showing of 
parents and grandparents, 5 ministers from 4 
different denominations, 2 youth ministers, 3 
bank executives, a pharmacist, a college 
president, a financial planner, a CPA, 2 school 
board members, 2 county commissioners, numerous 
retired teachers, some high school students, along with our own campus people.

Next time I will begin earlier. I will put 
something in the paper at least 4 weeks ahead 
reminding people to “save the date” and send a 
general mailing. Some of my working people would 
have come, but were already obligated.

We will be doing this again on March 8, 2010, during Texas Public School Week.

*** I had Book Character Day... the morning was 
all about the book characters.  The afternoon I 
scheduled guest readers.  I had one reader for 
each teacher and the guest readers would rotate 
through the grade. For example,  a guest reader 
would read his/her book four times to four different classes.

Who have you had come to read at your 
school?  parents, school administrators, 
librarians, friends, etc. How did you get them to 
come?  I asked them!  Very few refusals. How did 
you organize the day?  see above What should 
folks be sure to do? be organized and have back 
up readers... there is always someone always 
can't make it at the last minute.  I had my 
principal or counselor on stand by.

I usually just choose a day in the school year 
that would work in conjuction with the other 
activities going on in the school.   I did these 
for ten years and they were very successful.  I 
haven't done one now for a couple of years, but 
may bring it back in a smaller version this year.

Thanks to all who responded!
Toni


Toni Buzzeo, MA, MLIS <mailto:tonibuzzeo@tonibuzzeo.com>
Maine Library Media Specialist of the Year Emerita
Buxton, ME 04093
http://www.tonibuzzeo.com
Adventure Annie Goes to Work , illustrated by Amy Wummer (Dial 2009)
The Great Dewey Hunt: A Mrs. Skorupski Story, 
illustrated by Sachiko Yoshikawa (Upstart 2009)  

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