Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.

While the motto “Passion. Potential. Power” may be emblazoned on our t-shirts, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go,” is the dictum to which I truly subscribe. Reading is the foundation of building knowledge, and the acquisition of knowledge is what enables us to achieve success in its many forms. By signing on to be a mentor, each CalSERVES member demonstrates their belief that every child deserves the opportunity to become a successful reader, and a successful citizen of the community and the world.

            

Most days, mentors work one on one with their assigned reading buddy, modeling prosodic reading, and monitoring students own reading journeys. However, on Friday, March 2^nd, mentors and students took a break from their tutoring routines to celebrate a certain literary hero. This great writer and thinker, who also espoused the belief that the ability to read will carry an individual far in all endeavors, was none other than Theodore Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. In honor of Seuss’s birthday, literacy specialist Mallori Thompson selected Seuss’s best work, which she had the full time R.L. mentors read aloud to small groups of students through out the day. Thompson also planned an activity to correspond to each book, which all mentors helped to facilitate.     

Highlights of the themed activities included a rhyme sort, with spell patterns found in the story The Sneetches printed on green stars. The green star cards were modeled after the ones on the Star-Bellied Sneetches, of course! Another game played, this one to accompany One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish, was a version of Go Fish, where students fished for digraph matches. A third activity had students writing and illustrating an alternate scene to And to Think that I Saw It On Mulberry Street featuring themselves as characters.

            

Overall Dr. Seuss’s birthday party was a merry celebration. The theme day was enjoyed by all who participated in the day’s events. We know Dr. Seuss would be proud!

~ Rachel Socia

Literacy Tutoring Team Leader at R.L. Stevens Elementary