The West Virginia Association of Elementary & Middle School Principals thanks everyone who participated in our “Let’s Read West Virginia” day. This “Let’s Read West Virginia” occasion was a day celebrating literacy and the joy of reading. For 2022 “Let’s Read WV Day” is tentatively scheduled for Thursday, April 7, 2022, as part of National Library Week
We invite a schools to spend the day, promoting the joys of reading, touting the library, holding “Read-Ins” and read aloud sessions with all students and community members. This is not an elementary activity, but ne we want to spread to all schools and community centers.
The WVAEMSP, in partnership with the West Virginia Association of Secondary School Principals, the West Virginia Board of Education, the West Virginia Department of Education, the West Virginia Library Commission, Read Aloud West Virginia, the South Charleston Public Library, the West Virginia Commission on the Arts, and Randall Reid-Smith, Commissioner of West Virginia Division of Culture and History, along with many others, celebrated the first Let’s Read West Virginia Day on Friday, April 13, 2018 and followed the next year on Thursday, April 11, 2019.
We worked with schools, workplaces and organizations to create a thirty to sixty minute read-aloud, group, or silent reading activity on Friday, April 13, 2018. This day was chosen in conjunction with National Library Week and took the place of the annual read-aloud activity from March 2nd, National Read Across America Day that was missed due to the school work stoppage.
The concept of Let’s Read West Virginia was presented by WVAEMSP Executive Director Mickey Blackwell at the March 14, 2018 Board of Education meeting. The Board voted to support the concept and superintendents were to be notified via their weekly update.
“The purpose of the activity was to support literacy throughout the state. We invited everyone to take thirty minutes out of their day on Friday, April 13th and read a book, a magazine, a news feature article….We asked you to discuss with a friend, to read aloud to a group of students, to ask each other, “what are you reading?’” said Dr. Blackwell.
“We will sponsor this and other literacy activities in every school in the state, and we want to extend this into the school setting and beyond, to our workplaces, community and senior centers. We want to support literacy and reading throughout West Virginia.”
For more information contact:
Mickey Blackwell, Ed.D.
Executive Director
West Virginia Association of Elementary/Middle School Principals
Box 4785, Charleston, WV, 25364
mblackwell@wvprincipals.org
304-610-6680
