World Read Aloud – Collaboration with Literacy
The most valuable resource that all teachers have is each other. Without collaboration, our growth is limited to our own perspectives. – Robert John Mehan
Librarians’ favorite day, I can say it is one of the famous days is World Read Aloud Day.
For those who are reading or hearing for the first time, World Read Aloud Day (WRAD) focuses on bringing awareness to the importance of reading aloud and sharing stories, and supporting Literacy as a human right. Studies reflect that people who read frequently are more equipped to understand others, have empathy, and see the world from different perspectives.
WRAD was created in 2010 by LitWorld, a nonprofit believing in the power of reading. Reading aloud helps individuals in different ways and to build literacy skills.
Reading aloud is essential-
- The preliminary reading and writing skills are developed through reading aloud from a very young age.
- Reading aloud to children puts them ahead of children who do not receive daily read-aloud regardless of cultural background.
- Read aloud sharpens the focus, improves vocabulary and comprehension skills. It strengthens listening skills too.
- Reading bedtime stories yields multiple benefits for parents and children.
Being a Teacher Librarian & member of the Liferarians association for a year now, I feel the importance of celebrating the world read-aloud day in schools and our community.
Last year I saw librarians celebrating this day by reading aloud in assemblies, inviting parents and special subject teachers to participate in, or inviting authors worldwide to join hands in their events. The whole school community comes together to make this day memorable.
But this year is different; everything for us is about virtual classes. I started exploring ways to execute some innovative ideas for my students.
Here comes the role of the media specialist. First, I started searching on different social media platforms and got overwhelmed by looking at world read-aloud hashtags popping up in all my social media accounts; enquired about the implementation of WRAD in a virtual setup and brought change globally.
After checking out with few ideas, my first attempt was to drop a question about the same in our Liferarians group. I received fantastic ideas from my Liferarian members.
One of the Liferarian members, Ms. Brinda Pandit from Gaudium school Hyderabad, reached out to me for the ‘World Read-Aloud Day’ collaboration. Her idea was to exchange our read-aloud videos for showing our students during virtual classes. I was very excited about this and wanted to do something different, something unique for my students, to expose them to various other librarians & storytellers. I immediately accepted the collaboration.
Later, we librarians brainstormed the idea and connected it with units in the school. After this, the necessary consent was taken by me from the school coordinators.
Collaboration not only happens only with Librarians, but it involves the whole school community. My school loved the idea, and we decided to go ahead with it.
Recording my read-aloud video was a task for me. I was doing it the first time. After many retakes, I successfully created my first read-aloud video. Meanwhile, a few other Liferarians members were also interested in sharing their videos. It was an excellent opportunity for all the librarians and our students to explore different stories from different storytellers.
A common platform was created to upload the read-aloud videos by different librarians and share them with their students.
When I saw all the videos, it took my imagination to the next level. All the videos were well managed. Some stories were interactive, while some were with puppets, and some were using online tools. It was overwhelming to get all the personalized stories on board.
It was a week-long celebration, and my students enjoyed it. The feedback received from the students was overwhelming.
The collaboration started with one school, but it was planned and executed with more than ten schools. Social media was floating with hashtags #world read aloud day #litworld #liferarians and tagging our schools.
This virtual celebration was a combination of collaborating and collaborating with Literacy. In one week, our students explored more than ten storybooks & different styles. It involves a lot of learning all around us.
While wrapping up, I am so proud to be part of the Liferarian community, which helped me grow in each stage of being a teacher-librarian. As we all know, Librarians don’t know everything; they know how to find out everything and for me finding our everything comes up with one-stop Liferarians.
Glimpses of some beautiful memories-
By
Work-Cited:
Yeros, Julie. “Celebrate World Read Aloud Day.” Globe Trottin’ Kids, 26 Jan. 2021, www.globetrottinkids.com/celebrate-world-read-aloud-day/#:~:text=World%20Read%20Aloud%20Day%20(WRAD,literacy%20as%20a%20human%20right.&text=Studies%20reflect%20that%20people%20who,the%20world%20from%20different%20perspectives.
Image Source: World Read Aloud Day, LitWorld, www.globetrottinkids.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Screen-Shot-2021-01-04-at-11.33.36-AM-600×733.png.
By
Mythily Iyengar
Hiranandani School Chennai
