Read For The Record
Each year since 2006, Jumpstart chooses one book that’s appropriate for ages 3 to 5 (the first was the classic The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper) and has groups read it to children on a single day. (One of Jumpstart’s longtime participants is NBC’s Today show.)
On the most recent Read for the Record day, October 3, 2013, Jumpstart reported that the book was read to 2,462,860 children—which the organization trumpets as a world record for same-day, same-book reading.
It’s what Jumpstart Communications Coordinator Liz Peters calls an “action-awareness campaign”—both providing a striking literacy experience, and also drawing attention to the need for young children to be ready for kindergarten.
Jumpstart’s primary endeavor is a program that recruits and trains college students and other volunteers to provide literacy experiences to preschool children in low-income neighborhoods and instill a lifelong love of learning and literacy.
“By celebrating with such a fun day, it helps put a spotlight on the importance of early education,” Peters says.
On October 21, 2014, people across the country will unite to read the children’s book Bunny Cakes, a comical story of sibling bonding and birthday shenanigans, by bestselling author and illustrator Rosemary Wells.
For information on Jumpstart, go to their Web site at www.jstart.org.
Read the Kentucky Living August 2014 feature that goes along with this Web exclusive, Story Time.
