Sigourney Family Reading Night Another Success

Sigourney- It can be argued that one of the foundational subjects of importance to a child’s education is reading. Schools will often find a number of ways to make reading more exciting for students and parents. For Sigourney, that means holding Family Reading Night at Sigourney Elementary School. According to Jolie Crawford, Title 1 reading instructor at Sigourney Elementary, Family Reading Night came about because of a requirement to hold a parents’ meeting through the Title 1 reading department.

“We have a title 1 plan and the state runs that. Part of that there is a communication piece with parents. We always contact the parents anytime their students qualify for Title reading services, and so we contact them after our testing periods to talk to them. In our plan it’s required that we have a meeting of some kind… and try to connect community with teachers and parents and get them all on the same page,” Crawford said.

In essence, Family Reading Night not only satisfies the reading requirement, but also brings fun and excitement to students. Crawford said that in years past, simply stating that a parent meeting was going to be held would not necessarily yield good turnout. Instead, what Crawford and Michelle Johnson, the other Title 1 reading instructor, have done is invite various community organizations into the school and provide a variety of activities and giveaways for students at Family Reading Night. The main goal of the event is to ensure that students are being given opportunities to read and are excited.

“Our goal is to get books into the hands of the kids and to have them show their families around and to kind of have a fun night together celebrating reading and books,” Crawford said. “The goal is just to promote reading. We have a great night, huge turnout, weather permitting always,” she added.

Another trademark of the event is a used book sale.

For more on this story and others, catch the March 6 edition of the News-Review.