Harlan Elementary School students attend Camp-Read-A-Lot

MT. PLEASANT - What better way to celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday than by reading by a campfire and eating s'mores?

Harlan Elementary School's Title I Reading team hosted their annual family event night on Tuesday evening. Over 80 students brought their parents and siblings to Camp-Read-A-Lot for fun reading activities, which included reading in the dark with flashlights or doing phonetic awareness exercises.

Martha Lisantti, the Title I instructor for the elementary school, explained Title I is a federally funded program that assists schools with higher numbers of students in need. The program is required to host a family event each year, which serves to 'pull in families, get them involved with their student's education.”

'The more students read at home, the stronger their fluency will get, the stronger their comprehension becomes. Families are key because we only have so much time during the day for instruction so it's vital that they're reading at home,” she said.

Fourth grade teacher Ashley Hoyer added reading is integral to all parts of learning.

'If you think about it, everything they do involves reading, whether it's reading a menu at a restaurant or reading a book here at school. Even in math, a lot of the word problems, they need to be able to comprehend a lot of what the problem is asking. Really, you read to learn,” she said.

As the event began, students excitedly filed into the school, grabbing hot dogs and beans before heading into reading rotations.

9-year-old Ayla Mahaffy, who brought her parents and younger sister with her to enjoy the evening of activities, said she 'liked all the books” and couldn't name a favorite.

'I'm excited for the flashlights,” she said.

First-grader Lorenzo Aranda said he was also excited to use the flashlights to read and make s'mores. When discussing his favorite books, he said he often enjoys checking out ones about bugs.

'My favorite is bug books. I like bugs because I like to learn facts about them and they're really fascinating. My favorite bug is fire ants. If you get stung by one, it feels like there's fire on you. They live in warm environments like South America, Africa and the United States,” Aranda said.

Bug books seemed to be a fan favorite for Harlan students as kindergartner Percy Bear said his favorite book to read at home was about ladybugs.

'I got a favorite book to read but I didn't bring it. It's a ladybug insect book. It's about ladybugs and also some other insects,” he said.

Bear's mother, Sarah Johnson, said the family reads almost every night and had just finished 'Where the Sidewalk Ends” by Shel Silverstein. Johnson said she felt reading is important because it helps expand her son's understanding of the world and helps him learn.

'I think it just opens up his eyes to things outside of himself and gives him more perspective. Also it helps words, we sound them out so just everyday doing that will just help him learn words better and spelling. He loves to spell already,” she said.

At Camp-Read-A-Lot, several Iowa Wesleyan University students volunteered to be readers for certain reading stations. Trent Paschal, a junior studying physical education, said the event was a great opportunity for him to work with younger students.

'They sent out an email asking about who wants to join and I love to read to kids. I grew up reading to kids. At my old high school, we did it every Thursday morning,” he said. Paschal added his favorite book growing up was 'One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish” and was excited to be able to read Dr. Seuss books to students throughout the evening.