A Wild, Whimsical Launch for the Mayor’s Summer Reading Club’s 14th Season
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Every year, GEEARS stages a celebratory launch for the Mayor’s Summer Reading Club (MSRC), an initiative that enlists community partners to produce literacy-rich programming all over the city of Atlanta, all summer long. At the center of that programming is an original picture book, aimed at readers ages zero to five and created expressly for the club.
Last week’s MSRC season launch featured DINOSAUR!, a wild and whimsical story adapted from an Alliance Theatre play by Olivia Aston Bosworth and illustrator Alex Ferror. The book follows an imaginative four-year-old who populates his parents’ desperate attempts at a healthy dinner with some delightfully destructive dinosaurs.
Consider the theatrical source of this story and just picture the props that infused this read-aloud. During the salad course, Alliance crew members flung fabric lettuce leaves into the audience of squealing preschoolers (along with parents, teachers, MSRC partners like our funder PNC Bank, and a very game policy analyst from the Atlanta Mayor’s office). When it was time for the entree, the air filled with plush meatballs, baguettes, and clumps of yarn “spaghetti.”
This rowdy read-aloud seemed like nothing more than big, chaotic fun, designed to make the children fall in love with DINOSAUR! before they each collected a signed copy to take home.
But Bosworth’s performance was, in fact, much more than a romp. Channeling DINOSAUR! into an adorable food fight is part of the research-based, literacy-promoting techniques at the heart of the Mayor’s Summer Reading Club. This pedagogy is outlined in a READ Guide, created and customized each year by the Rollins Center for Language & Literacy, then bound into the back of every MSRC book.
The R in READ, for example, stands for “Repeat the book.” E equals “Engage and Enjoy.” A means “Ask Questions.” And D mandates that you “Do More With the Book.” That’s where plush meatballs may come into play.
“What makes the READ guide so critical to the Mayor’s Summer Reading Club mission is that parents and caregivers aren’t always with their children at MSRC events,” notes Greg Barrett, GEEARS’ Senior Manager of Leadership & Learning and director of the MSRC. “Sometimes they take their kids to programs at their public library or there might be a read-aloud in a pediatrician’s waiting room, thanks to one of our partners, Reach Out and Read Georgia. But just as often, Atlanta kids experience MSRC programming at school or camp, when parents aren’t around.
“When their kids bring their MSRC books home,” Greg continues, “the techniques in the READ guide help caregivers maximize the early literacy impact of reading with their kids.”
This year, in particular, the MSRC’s pursuit of early literacy gains is aligned with the state of Georgia’s. Fewer than 35% of Georgia third graders demonstrated proficiency in the most recent Georgia Milestones English Language Arts assessment. As a result, the state is further prioritizing early learning as a literacy essential with the passage of HB 1193, the Georgia Literacy Act. Among the law’s provisions is a requirement that school systems collaborate with early learning providers to support school readiness and early language development.
The Mayor’s Summer Reading Club is both direct programming and advocacy for legislation like this, which embraces the fact that literacy in the K-12 years depends upon high quality, literacy-rich education during the zero-to-five years.
The fact that such early learning can be as fun as a pack of velociraptors swimming through spaghetti is simply a bonus.
To find a Mayor’s Summer Reading Club program where your child can get their own copy of DINOSAUR! click here!