Tatem Elementary Students Are Readers for Life

All across the country this week, schools honored Read Across America Week. But of any national reading effort, literacy's greatest show of spirit was seen inside William P. Tatem Elementary School. 

Tatem students paid tribute all week long—Read Across America Week began Feb. 28 and ends March 4—but the school's most striking efforts were seen mid-week.

Because Wednesday, Tatem's ambition for reading was so great, it was even visible from the sky.

Wednesday wasn't your average school-day at Tatem. Teachers and students scurried down the halls, preparing to show the world their passion for literacy. Once everyone was together, the crowd filtered onto the playground blacktop—where they'd get into position. 

Guided only by white-tape lines laid onto the blacktop, teachers and students found their designated places and stood at attention. The entire school was ready. 

In unison, Tatem's 184 students and 16 staff members—from their place on the ground—looked up at the school's roof, where a camera-man waited to take the snapshot. 

It was a sight for sore eyes. From the roof's aerial view, students and teachers filled the space inside of four, huge white-tape letters—their bodies spelling out a life-sized word: R-E-A-D.

The letters were spelled-out in a sea of blue, thanks to fifth-grader Katrina Adamczyk-DeLarge. The 11-year-old Tatem student won the school's Read Across America T-Shirt Design Contest—and Kindergartener Riley Stacey came up with the shirt's slogan, Tatem Tigers Read Past Their Bedtime. Katrina's sketch was chosen from hundreds of her fellow classmates' designs. The prize? Every single Tatem student and staff member wore identical shirts Wednesday, all of them bearing her design.

Shrugging, Katrina admitted she's only been drawing for the past two years. 

"I only started drawing after my mom bought me a notebook for my birthday, and I decided to draw in it," said Katrina.

The artists' tools of the trade? Katrina said all of her designs are sketched in pencil first, and later outlined in thin marker—the exact process she used to create the winning Read Across America T-shirt design. 

Katrina only submitted an outlined sketch in the contest, leaving color-scheme up to the school. As for why her design won, Katrina credits its uniqueness.

"It shows a girl reading on the moon. And a clock is hanging from the moon, but she's not looking at it," said Katrina. "The clock says it's 11:30 (p.m.), and it's past her bedtime, but she can't stop reading to check the time. The book is so good, she forgets everything else.

"The most exciting thing was to see everyone wearing my design," she said. "It made me feel proud of myself for being able to do it."

And Katrina thinks her design's message could potentially persuade more students to pick up a book and read.

R-E-A-D. That one word embodies countless initiatives Tatem has used this school year, both to improve student literacy and teach them a love of reading.

"We have been doing so much to promote reading this year," said Tatem Elementary School Supervisor Jennifer McPartland. "Students have been reading for 30 minutes daily in their classrooms, and that's really boosted the overall interest in reading."

And McPartland said the school's efforts are paying off.

"Our literacy activities are really carrying over into students' home life. Parents are calling the school, saying, 'My child has really been reading very voraciously at home,'" said McPartland, her face breaking into a proud smile.

It's true—Tatem's kids are loving books. Even after the excitement of spelling out a human R-E-A-D, students' voices echoed from hallways and classrooms, fearlessly confessing, ''I love books!"

But Wednesday was filled with more fun than just people-sized words. 

Before spelling R-E-A-D, the school held a Books & Breakfast event from 9 to 10:30 a.m. Parents stopped by Tatem, bringing  breakfast treats like Green Eggs & Ham—in honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday. Post-breakfast, parents read aloud from some of Seuss' best works.

And when Wednesday's dismissal bell rang, Tatem still wasn't ready to end the celebration. The dismissal was simply a quick break. 

At 6 p.m. Wednesday evening, parents, students and staff gathered back at the school for Family Reading Night. Planned by school staff, the event featured literacy-boosting activities like Making Words, which prompts students to complete mystery words.

Read Across America Week is coming to an end, but Read Across Tatem has just begun. This past September, students kicked off the year with a pledge to read 5,625 hours before school ends for summer. 

"Each of our nine classrooms set their own individual reading goal, and this May, all the class totals will be calculated—and we'll see if we met our grand total of 5,625 hours," McPartland said. 

But McPartland said literacy has already improved significantly this year.

"From September until now, the greatest improvement has been in students' enthusiasm for reading," said McPartland.

And students' enthusiasm is rightfully present. Even strolling Tatem's halls Wednesday was an adventure. Turn a corner, and you're nose-to-nose with The Cat In The Hat. Turn another, it's the Tatem's own Reading Superhero, Factorina.

That's exactly why reading has caught-on at William P. Tatem. Here, reading is made fun. But once you catch the Tatem bookworm, you're stuck. Even an appearance from Dr. Seuss himself would be in vain—you'd be too immersed in your story to notice him, anyway.