PJs & Reading at Miller Elementary

After celebrating the 100th day of school on Valentine’s Day, Miller Elementary dived right into Rockland Read-In on Friday.

“The kids were allowed to wear their pajamas to school today and they loved it. They got a kick out of it,” said Principal Betsy Smith.

Rockland BOCES School Library System sponsors this Read-In each year and participating schools determine creative ways to get kids reading.

At Miller, there was also cross-classroom reading where second graders read to first graders and kindergarteners.

To keep it fun and a little competitive, the schools log their reading minutes and the ones with the most are recognized. Schools are divided into categories based on grade level and student population.

Smith said that minutes read will be added up by classroom and for the entire school.

“This year’s theme is Wild about Reading, which our librarian Iris Heller came up with. If the kids like it, we’ll use the theme again for summer reading,” said Smith. “Outside each classroom is a fun read-a-meter that measures the students’ reading.”

The students also participated in Readers Theater, during which students in a class take turns reading certain lines of a story. Some students read the dialogue and others narrate.

“Readers Theater is our strategy for the classroom,” said Smith. “As they keep reading the same book out loud and learn and hear the words, they get better at their oral reading and fluency.”

Today for Readers Theater, the book Quiet by Paul Bright was projected on a large screen in the cafeteria. Jayne Levin and MaryRose Palumbo's class sat on a mini stage following a script and reading the book out loud to the rest of the grade. The other classes read along silently.

In keeping with the theme, the students that read Quiet each had a jungle animal hat on, the hallways were decorated and each grade level was a different wild animal: panther, toucan or orangutan. Last year, Miller staff members dressed up as literary characters.