More than 10,000 Coweta County school children participated in the national “Read for the Record” event held Oct. 21. The annual event was part of a worldwide effort to promote early childhood education and support literacy.
School system spokesman Dean Jackson said 10,220 students were read “Bunny Cakes” by Rosemary Wells, as a part of the 2014 Read for the Record event.
Across the county teachers, parents, grandparents, high school students and other guest readers came to classrooms to share the story about rabbits making birthday cakes for their grandmother, Jackson said, adding that the school system’s celebrity readers included East Coweta High School coaches J. R. Revere, Chris Hardin and Alicia Porras; Newnan High School coaches Leslie Fant, Hap Hines and Rogeric Ladd; and Northgate High School coaches Sarah Frazier, Marcellous Johnson and Becky Lowery.
“The students were excited to see coaches from the high schools,” said Coweta School Language Arts and Social Studies Specialist Paula Baker, who helped organize this year’s event. “Many of them have older siblings who play sports for these coaches. The elementary students were thrilled to have in-person readers visit them and talk about the differences they could hear between them and the celebrity readers.”
Kindergarten students at Ruth Hill Elementary visited Smokey Road Middle School to make bunny ears and hear media specialist Jamie Smith read the story. The 5-year-olds were hosted by the middle school’s Future Educators of America students.
“Our club is an official partner with Jumpstart’s Read for the Record,” said Smokey Road teacher Pam Brown. After the story, the Ruth Hill kindergarteners colored bunny ears to wear, sorted groceries like the characters in the book, and held a relay race to find particular items from a pretend grocery store.
Videos of the coaches reading the story were posted online at the school system’s website. To see their online story-telling visit www.cowetaschools.org/index.php/component/content/article/338-ccss-video…
Jackson said thousands of schools, libraries and daycare centers nationwide participated in Read for the Record on Oct. 21 in an attempt to break a world record by reading the same story to millions of children in one day.
Coweta County participates each year in the event, which is intended to support literacy and promote early childhood education, Jackson said, adding that last year Coweta’s students were among 2.46 million children who participated worldwide.
