READ USA Book Fair season is upon us, and they officially kick off tomorrow at Arlington Elementary!
NOW is the time to sign up to volunteer at upcoming Book Fairs!
Jacksonville Jaguars staff members will volunteer at the Arlington Elementary Book Fair tomorrow in honor of Defensive Lineman Arik Armstead, who was recently named the Walter Payton Man of the Year. Arik received the highly competitive recognition due to his extensive community involvement and his work with the Armstead Academic Project, the nonprofit organization he founded in California and brought to Jacksonville last year with his wife, Mindy. READ USA has been proud to partner with the Armstead Academic Project given its focus on childhood literacy, and we were thrilled that the Jaguars organization wanted to honor and celebrate Arik’s achievement in this manner!
THANK YOU to the Jacksonville Jaguars for joining us on Thursday!
We also have a special surprise in store for the students of Arlington Elementary tomorrow: Mayor Deegan’s River City Readers Bookmobile will be in front of the school, and the Book Fair will take place on the Bookmobile itself! (Spoiler alert: this is the only READ USA Book Fair that the Bookmobile will attend, but we are excited to have its presence for the kickoff to Book Fair season!) It will be a fun experience for Arlington Elementary’s Little Dolphins tomorrow!
Stay tuned for photos from tomorrow’s Book Fair – and maybe another fun surprise or two – and sign up to volunteer at any other READ USA Book Fair coming up between Monday, March 31 and Friday, May 9!
Episcopal School of Jacksonville Beaches Campus Supports READ USA
The Episcopal School of Jacksonville (ESJ) Beaches Campus is hosting its own Book Fair this week, and READ USA is grateful to provide and receive support from it!
READ USA team members and volunteers are at the ESJ Beaches Campus this week to help make sure the fair funs smoothly, books are well stocked on the shelves, and – if not more importantly – that the students enjoy themselves! We absolutely love our volunteers: many of them hear “book fair” and jump at the opportunity to get involved – we are so thankful to our wonderful volunteers for taking their time to support!
We are also immensely grateful to ESJ Beaches Campus’s leadership and Parent Advisory Board, particularly this year’s Parent Advisory Board President Laura Smith (who is a tremendous supporter of READ USA with her family!), for the ongoing partnership and support of their wonderful idea launched last year: the Buy a Book, Donate a Book service project.
Students visiting the Book Fair have the option to purchase a book to donate when they purchase their own books. Last year, we had so many students participate, and the donation bin was rather full! Our hearts continue to be so touched by the generosity of these young ESJ Beaches students.
Thank you to the ESJ Beaches Campus team and students and the Parent Advisory Board for your continued partnership with READ USA!
Last Call for Tenikka’s Books for Kids!
Action News Jax Anchor Tenikka Hughes is a passionate advocate for literacy in our community and a wonderful friend of READ USA. In fact, since she launched Tenikka’s Books for Kids, her signature book collection drive, in 2018, she has put more than 35,000 free books into local children’s hands, hearts, and homes! We absolutely love the opportunity to celebrate this with Tenikka!
There is still time to support this year’s book drive! Tenikka’s Books for Kids, or #TB4K, runs through this Saturday, March 29 at locations across the city.
Graphic from Action News Jax
You still have three days to purchase or donate new or gently used picture books, chapter books, and other books for students 18 or under who participate in the Jacksonville Public Library’s Summer Reading Program. You can drop them off at:
- Any branch of the Jacksonville Public Library
- First Coast YMCA branches
- First Florida Credit Union locations
You can also donate online to the Tenikka’s Books for Kids Fund through the Library Foundation of Jacksonville. More details are available here!
Thank you to Tenikka and Action News Jax for keeping #TB4K going strong for eight years! Your passion for students, literacy, and books continues to ripple through our community!
Children’s Book: A Computer Called Katherine by Suzanne Slade
Illustrated by Veronica Miller Jamison
To conclude READ USA’s celebration of Women’s History Month, the book A Computer Called Katherine is a wonderful biography written to honor a woman who overcame insurmountable odds to persist and succeed at reaching her goals.
Throughout this compellingly told biography, the narrator compares social wrongs to miscalculated math problems, as in the belief that, “women could only be teachers or nurses. Katherine knew that was wrong—as wrong as 10 – 5 = 3.” She also objected to segregation and to her exclusion from meetings at Langley Aeronautical Laboratory that had only ever been attended by men.
She proved everyone wrong by zooming ahead of her classmates, starting college at 15, and eventually joining NASA, where her calculations helped pioneer America’s first manned flight into space, its first manned orbit of Earth, and the world’s first trip to the moon! Because she broke barriers that sought to limit her abilities, Katherine stands as an important example of persisting in making change. Illustrator Jamison beautifully conveys in illuminating watercolors both how much Katherine enjoyed numbers and how determined she was to succeed in a male-dominated field.
Submitted by Dr. Robert Kelly, Jr., READ USA President and Chief Executive Officer
Parent Education Corner: Learning About Letters
Learning about letters is important in the development of our preschoolers. There are many ways to support children in this learning, that are easy and fun!
Learning to Look at Letters
As readers, we see letters as different from one another, but to preschoolers, letters may look the same – a lot of sticks and curves. Before children are ready to learn letters, they should be able to differentiate between straight and curved lines or tall and short letters. They also need to understand the difference between letters, numbers, and other symbols. Children need to learn to notice the distinctive features of a letter; what makes it different from every other letter.
A fun way for your preschooler to learn the physical characteristics of the letters is through sorting activities using magnetic letters, lacing letters or foam letters.
Examples of ways to sort letters:
Additional ways to sort letters are by:
- slant (v, w, x) and straight (p, l, t, h, d) lines
- upper and lower case,
- tails (y, j, p, q) and no tails (m, r, s, w)
- tunnels (h, n, u, m) and no tunnels (g, j, b, c, o, s)
After the sorting activities, you can reinforce your child’s letter knowledge by talking about the letters (“Yes, this letter is a tall letter! It’s the letter t. The letter t says /t/ like tiger.”)
Enjoy this time with your preschooler as you watch their knowledge of letters grow! They will not only learn the distinctive features of the letters, but also how to connect them with letter names and sounds.
Submitted by Tabetha Cox, READ USA Chief Programs Officer
Do you have any questions or ideas for the Parent Education Corner? Anything you’d like to learn? Let us know here!