RES and Dr. Seuss

Story adapted from March 7 Quantico Sentry

In honor of the late Dr. Seuss’ birthday, Sunday, students and teachers at Russell Elementary School celebrated his life work Monday in conjunction with ‘‘Read Across America.”

Throughout the school, students and teachers donned hats, which resembled the cat’s hat from ''The Cat in the Hat,” and ears like Horton, from ''Horton Hears a Who.''

Just like in the book, when the cat posed various questions and riddles to the kids, Ms. Z, Russell Elementary staff member, began the morning by reading a riddle over the pubic announcement system. The challenge for the students was to answer her riddle, which referred to one of Dr. Seuss’ many books.

According to event coordinator Ms. B, the reason the school picked Dr. Seuss to be the feature author for the school was because he was a huge supporter on social justice, and all of his books equate lessons that parents and teachers are trying to teach children. She added that some topics of his books, such as discrimination, racism, trying new things and how to be peaceful, are taught on the children’s level.

‘‘The way he portrays the topics, it makes perfect since to small children,” Ms. B said. ‘‘It also hits home to parents, too.”

According to www.seussville.com, Dr. Seuss epitomizes a love of children and learning. Also, his use of rhyme makes his books an effective tool for teaching young children the basic skills they need to be successful.

Dr. Seuss expresses to children that reading is fun and important, Boswell said.

Ms. B went on to explain that there are more than 30 Dr. Seuss titles on the Department of Defense Education Activity’ s reading counts list, those titles also include books written under Dr. Seuss’ pen names, Theo LeSieg and Rosetta Stone. After the children read books or had books read to them, they were able to take a comprehension test for the reading counts program.

‘‘It is a group effort and each teacher, parent and even the students had a part in this event. The entire school family participated,” Ms. B said.

Not only did ‘‘The Cat in the Hat” make special appearances and read to the children, third graders read books to the younger students. When the children read to other children, it helps the reader become a stronger and confident reader, said Ms. M, Russell Elementary School public relations liaison.

National Education Association’s Read Across America is an annual reading motivation and awareness program that calls for every child in every community to celebrate reading on or around Dr. Seuss’s birthday.

According to NEA’s Web site, motivating children to read is an important factor in student achievement and creating lifelong successful readers and research has shown that children who are motivated and spend more time reading do better in school.

In honor of Dr. Seuss and in support of Read Across America, pick up a book and read to child.