Rotary clubs worldwide can play a powerful role in bringing All District Reads’ Home-Based Family Literacy Program to local school systems and communities.
In Lighting Literacy Fires, by Gary Anderson and John Micklos, we describe the impact of a community-wide One Book program in which families read the same children’s novel aloud at home, chapter by chapter, and stay on the same page. When everyone is reading the same book at the same pace, children, parents, teachers, grandparents, and community members have something meaningful to talk about every day—the book they are reading together.
A Rotary club can help make this happen by bringing the school system and community together around reading. The goal is simple: get families reading aloud together at home and create a community that talks about books.
Rotary clubs worldwide can play a powerful role in bringing All District Reads’ Home-Based Family Literacy Program to local school systems and communities.
In Lighting Literacy Fires, by Gary Anderson and John Micklos, we describe the impact of a community-wide One Book program in which families read the same children’s novel aloud at home, chapter by chapter, and stay on the same page. When everyone is reading the same book at the same pace, children, parents, teachers, grandparents, and community members have something meaningful to talk about every day—the book they are reading together.
A Rotary club can help make this happen by bringing the school system and community together around reading. The goal is simple: get families reading aloud together at home and create a community that talks about books.
The program benefits everyone involved. Children experience the joy of being read to, families have meaningful time together, schools strengthen their culture of reading, and Rotary clubs can provide lasting community service that reaches virtually every elementary family.
It is also fair to all concerned. Schools do not have to create another program to manage, teachers are not burdened with additional classroom requirements, families participate together in their own homes, and Rotary provides leadership and community support rather than taking on the school system's role.
The Rotary Club of Downtown Suffolk has been an All District Reads member for the past four years. During that time, the club has helped initiate eight children’s novels, with all 8,000 elementary students and their families in the community participating.
This is community-wide literacy in action. Rotary has helped bring families together around books while strengthening the relationship between the school system and the broader community.
George Birdsong, a Rotary member for more than 50 years and CEO of Birdsong Corporation, describes the broader impact: “You’re helping individual kids and also helping in the community by raising the reading skills of our workforce.”
That is the larger vision of All District Reads. When we improve children's reading lives today, we also strengthen the communities and workforce of tomorrow.
When a community completes two books a year, something bigger begins. Reading becomes more than a school activity. It becomes part of the community's culture.
We call these Literacy Gold Communities—communities where school systems, Rotary clubs, families, businesses, and community organizations work together to make reading aloud and family literacy a shared community value.
It all starts with an email.
A Rotary club interested in bringing this opportunity to its local school system can simply contact info@alldistrictreads.
Rotary can help light the fire. Families keep it burning. And together, communities can become Literacy Gold.