The 'Cat in the Hat' and company pay a visit to Wells Elementary School on Celebration of Reading Day on March 3. SUBMITTED PHOTO

The ‘Cat in the Hat’ and company pay a visit to Wells Elementary School on Celebration of Reading Day on March 3. SUBMITTED PHOTO

WELLS — The Wells-Ogunquit CSD featured its annual “Celebration of Reading Day” event earlier this month with the first part taking place at Wells Junior High School for fifth-grade students and the following day for all grades at Wells Elementary School.

This is a time set aside for guests from the community and within the WOCSD to take a few minutes from their day to read to a classroom of students.

At Wells Junior High School, members of the Wells High School Interact Club, led by Kevin Fox and Rachel Graceffia, partnered with Wells Rotarians for a “read-aloud” in various fifth-grade classrooms.

According to Cheryl Turner, a fifth-grade teacher at WJHS, the Wells Rotary Club purchased the books to be read and later donated to 5th grade classroom libraries. Non-fiction picture books read that day were about people who had overcome adversity.

Books included Salt in His Shoes: Michael Jordan in Pursuit of a Dream by Deloris Jordan; Thank You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco; and Bad News for Outlaws by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson.

The following day at Wells Elementary School featured more than 40 guest readers from the community and the WOCSD visiting classrooms throughout the school.

Guest readers included members of the Wells Fire Department, Wells Police Department and the Ogunquit Rotary Club. In honor of Dr. Seuss’s birthday, some visiting WHS students came dressed as characters from Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat.

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The Celebration of Reading Day at WES is coordinated by Community Resource Coordinator, Maryanne Foley. 

“Everyone leaves after reading to our students with a smile on their faces,” said Foley. “It really builds that feeling of community when people from all over Wells and Ogunquit come in to share their love of reading.”

According to Nancy Colley, a reading specialist at WES, the event that evolved into Celebration of Reading Day began at WES in March of 1998, the first year of the National Education Association’s Read Across America which, this year, was March 2 the birthday of Theodor Seuss Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss.

At the March 8 meeting of the Wells-Ogunquit CSD School Committee, Superintendent James P. Daly thanked Foley for her work coordinating Celebration of Reading Day. Foley has been coordinating this event for about two decades.


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