Pick a Reading Partner, or PARP, is an important part of the school year at Springs, helping students connect with reading in fun and unique ways.
Every year, kids from kindergarten through fifth grade create posters and slogans to promote reading. Past winning slogans have included “Time Flies When You’re Reading” and “Gobble Up a Good Book.”
Another fun part of PARP is the pajama party, which the school recently hosted. During this event, some teachers volunteered to read stories aloud with the younger students on an evening when the Scholastic Book Fair was happening. In addition to hearing a great story, students and their families browsed new books at the fair. Volunteers read a favorite book with the hope that it will have a positive effect on listeners, just as it did on them.
The school looked like a giant slumber party.
“It was nice to read aloud because with fourth-grade students you can’t do it so much,” said Jenna Rocker, a fourth-grade teacher who read “The Paper Bag Princess” by Robert Munsch at the school that night. It was a book her father read to her when she was young, and she chose it because she likes how it ends very differently than other fairy tales.
By Sydney Borowsky, Galia Calderon Sanchez, and Amelia Schreck, Grade 6