Hazelwood Elementary School celebrated the joy and power of reading during its 6th Annual Winter Family Reading Night.  This family event was intended to be a relaxing, fun evening where students and their families could enjoy time together and listen to great stories.  Hazelwood families also learned how they can meet the reading needs in their own families, such as, tips for reading aloud, strategies to help their child’s reading achievement, and ways they can continue to shape the reading life of their child.

Readers for the evening included local author, Tony Antonino, Jr., Julie Thompson, 4th grade teacher at Hazelwood, and Lisa Hartzell, Children’s Librarian at the Haywood County Public Library.  Ms. Hartzell also shared public library resources and brought along two therapy dogs.  The students loved snuggling with them on our story rug while listening to stories.

In addition to these adult readers, we also had two student readers who were chosen as reader leaders for the evening.  They applied for this leadership opportunity and were chosen from all applications as our reader leaders.  Both students showed great leadership, courage, and skill reading a story aloud to our families.

Hot chocolate and cookies ended the evening as Hazelwood families left with a sense of the pure enjoyment of reading together.  Our community of readers is growing every day at Hazelwood Elementary School – where Readers are Leaders!

Submitted by:  Carol Clarke, Hazelwood Elementary School