Greeting students during Wells Elementary School’s Celebration of Reading Day are, from left, Wells Police Dept. Sgt. Adam Shaw with police dog Bacchus, Wells Police Detective Joseph LaBier and Wells Police Detective Jeffrey Galasyn. In the afternoon they visited the fourth-grade classroom of Melissa Stapleton on Celebration of Reading Day. Officer Shaw talked and answered questions about Bacchus. Officers LaBier and Galasyn read books that they had selected to Stapleton’s class. COURTESY PHOTO/Reg Bennett
WELLS — The annual Celebration of Reading Day as part of the NEA’s Read Across America Day, established around the March 2 birthday of Dr. Seuss, a pen name for Theodor Seuss Geisel who authored numerous children’s books including “The Cat in the Hat” was observed at Wells Elementary School.
Invited guests were assigned classrooms to visit and share their love of reading with students by reading aloud one or two of their favorite children’s books.
A total of 39 community members attended at various times throughout the day to reinforce the importance and joy of reading, not only in school but also at home.
Guest readers included teachers, former teachers, parents, students and representatives from the Wells Fire Department, Wells Police Department, People’s United Bank, York Hospital, Ogunquit Rotary Club, and the Wells Public Library which hosted a “Dr. Seuss party” for all first- and second-grade students in the school’s library.
“Celebration of Reading Day is always a wonderful day for the students, staff and the guest readers,” said Wells Ogunquit Community School District Community Resource Coordinator Maryanne Foley who coordinated the event. “Having the community involved in promoting the importance of reading gives the students a different perspective. We love having visitors come in to celebrate reading.”
One reader used an interesting way to reach students.
Kyle Burnell, a third-grade teacher at Wells Elementary, and his wife Eileen Brazer Burnell, a teacher at Eliot Elementary School, connected classrooms via FaceTime so that she could read to his students on a class projection screen.
Wells Junior High School featured a scaled-down version of Celebration of Reading Day on March 1.
Members of the Wells Rotary Club visited the school for about an hour and read in various classrooms. One of the Rotarians read “We Don’t Eat Our Classmates” by author and illustrator Ryan T. Higgins whose mother, Deb Sheppard, teaches fifth grade at Wells Junior High School.
“Students enjoyed it,” said WJHS librarian Lynn Mercier of the visit by members of Rotary.
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