Tag Archive for Skoi Yase elementary

“Guess the Reader”: A Fun, Easy Way to Promote Literacy in Your School

We should all know, by now, that the best schools celebrate literacy everywhere, all the time. Reading isn’t something that happens in isolation, an hour a day in room 613. An activity done only by “nerds.” Instead, literacy is the environment, the air we breathe. Inclusive of students and teachers, yes. But the staff, too. Everyone gets into the act. Literacy is the habitat in which students thrive, as natural as fish in water.

In schools where literacy is central to the mission, there are happy reminders of books and reading everywhere you turn. It’s a shared activity. An ongoing, daily conversation. Books!

Here’s one easy, fun idea I discovered on a recent school visit to Skoi Yase Elementary School in Waterloo, NY. Essentially: several posters, featuring students and faculty and staff, in a small section of a hallway. The photos below are self-explanatory.

As one teacher said to me, “The kids love it.”

And it sends a powerful message.



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