North Myrtle Beach Times Serving our Community and the Grand Strand for over 50 years
Loris Elementary School held a parade on Friday, March 1, to celebrate and bring awareness in a fun way for children to want to read books. LES supports the National Reading Month every year with a new way to share interest in reading. This year they celebrated Dr. Seuss’ 114th birthday one day early. Because his birthday landed on a Saturday, all elementary schools promoted the program on Friday.
One LES student, Keaton Dew, a fourth grader, showed off his homemade costume of a hot air balloon with the caption “Oh the places you go.” His choice promotes travel, whether it is history, science, fiction or a biography. There are many places a book can take a person.
Promoting reading and fun reading the elementary schools in the Loris area find fun and unique ways for the children to interact with books. They are able to use their imaginations to travel through time. Turning off all electronics and sitting in a well lit area to read a book is relaxing as well as entertaining and educational. Beginning with pre-school age children it is encouraged for parents to read to a child. Volunteers and mentors come to the school to help children with reading. Incentives for reading come with rewards every nine weeks when a child completes the forms for the governors ‘reading program and president’s reading program.
On June 11, 2014, then governor Nikki Haley signed the Act 284 Read to Succeed, The Child Development Education Pilot Program. This created the South Carolina Early Reading Development and Education Program assisting with providing a full day educational program for many of the states at risk four-year-olds to establish an early implementation of reading.
Children in the elementary level are encouraged to read and build their Lexile level and to be challenged to build their skills by reading every night. Parents who read nightly and share their love of books with their children “lead by example”.
A popular method used by schools to measure a student reader’s ability is Lexile level or a Lexile Measure. A Lexile Measure is a valuable tool for teachers, parents and students. It serves two unique functions: it is the measure of how difficult a text is or a student’s reading ability level. Higher Lexile Measures represent a higher level of reading ability. A Lexile reader measure can range from below 200L for beginning readers to above 1700L for advanced readers. Readers who score at or below 0L receive a BR for Beginning Reader. A Lexile Measure is defined as “the numeric representation of an individual’s reading ability or a text’s readability (or difficulty), followed by an “L” (Lexile)”. There are two types of Lexile Measures: Lexile reader measures and Lexile text measures.
National Reading Month begins on March 2 to motivate those of all ages to read every day. Reading regularly has been linked to development of positive mental health throughout life. NEA’s Read Across America Day is a nationwide reading celebration that takes place annually on March 2 which is Dr. Seuss’ birthday. Thousands of schools and libraries participate in this event from elementary to high schools.
Celebrate the month by reading to a child.
