Parkway South Middle Kicks off First Annual Literacy Night

To promote summer reading, Parkway South Middle hosted their first Annual Family Literacy Night.  Working in partnership, the St. Louis County Library attended to promote their summer reading program, which kicked off the end of May for adults, and on June 1 for babies though teenagers. Prize packages and raffle drawings offer incentives for reaching goals as set by the public library. The County Library also offered information on their Student Volunteer Programs.

At South Middle, various stations were set up to encourage families to stay engaged in reading to prevent the 'summer reading loss' that occurs when school is out of session.

The Scholastic Book Fair was also set up in the library to purchase books for all age levels. The school earns 'book credits' instead of monetary profit so that additional books can be purchased for school use.

You could win a book in the Book Walk which is a game patterned after the traditional Cake Walk. You could also trade in gently used books and pick out other books in the Book Swap.

Game stations were available to play literacy-based games like Boggle and Scrabble.  For the younger children, a craft table was set up to create bookmarks. They could also listen to picture book read-alouds, while sitting in a comfortable sitting area with pillows.

Another area was set up with the list of Recommended Reading Lists for the incoming 6th, 7th and 8th graders, complete with the actual books to peruse so the students could get an idea of which books might best interest them.

A Reader's Theatre performed by South Middle students provided entertainment, while further promoting literacy.

The highlight of the evening was a Flash Mob arranged by Ms Marlene McCarthy, a literacy specialist at South Middle. With permission, an Ocoee, Florida, middle school wrote new lyrics about reading/books to accompany the Black-Eyed Peas melody of "I Gotta Feeling" called "Gotta Keep Reading". The students began the formation of their bodies spelling out "Read" and danced to this catchy rendition.