The Guest Reader program is for students in pre-kindergarten through grade 5. Every year, from January through late May, business leaders, city officials and local citizens spend 20 to 30 minutes per week in an elementary school classroom reading aloud to the children.
The program is intended to expose students to the pleasures of reading and to present a positive reading role model. Reading to children brings enjoyment to both the readers and the students, and reinforces the idea that reading is fun for everyone.
Signup for our Guest Reader Program!
The Peabody Education Foundation is again looking for volunteers from businesses and the local community to be a part of our highly successful Guest Reader Program. We are also looking for teachers who would like to have guest readers come visit their classrooms. The program is for students in Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 5 and will run from Monday, January 13 until Friday, May 23 (excluding any school holidays or vacation weeks).
Dates:
January 13th, 2025 – May 23rd, 2025
(excluding any school holidays or vacation weeks)
Time Commitment:
20-30 minutes, once a week
Deadline to Apply:
Registration is now closed!
Guest Readers:
We are looking for adults who are willing and able to spend 20 to 30 minutes, once a week reading to the students. Reading to children brings enjoyment to both them and you. We hope that you and your co-workers and friends will consider being a part of this wonderful program this year, visiting a classroom, reading aloud to the students and showing them that reading is fun for everyone.
Teachers:
Our Guest Reader program is for Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 5 students and is intended to bring adults from the community into your classrooms for approximately 20-30 minutes per week to read a book to the students. If you are interested in having your classroom participate in the Guest Reader Program, please click the button below!
Please Note:
To help us keep complete records of program participation and so that we may let our teachers and readers know of anything which could impact the program, we ask that, if you make arrangements directly with a specific reader or teacher, you still complete the online form indicating that the two of you are in agreement.
Reinforcing the Benefits of Reading
While most people would agree that reading aloud to children is a good idea, new studies are showing just how beneficial reading aloud can be for toddlers and preschoolers. An article in the New York Times outlined two pediatric studies about the significant interactions that occur when children listen to books read aloud. Of course, this is something that the Peabody Education Foundation’s Guest Readers suspected all along!
The first study, published in the journal Pediatrics, monitored brain activity in 3- to 5-year-old children as they listened to stories, and found a positive correlation between higher reading exposure and greater activation of brain areas associated with mental imagery, language processing, and narrative comprehension. The children hearing the stories were imagining them in their minds, a skill that can then help those children develop into better readers.
The second study, published in the journal Psychological Science, found that the language content of age-appropriate picture books contained more unique word types than the language used by parents talking to their children. This means that the more often children read to, the more likely they will hear a wider range of vocabulary words than those children who are not being read to. These studies show that reading to children plays an important role in developing brain activity and helping children become better readers.
Peabody Education Foundation
The Peabody Education Foundation provides unique programs and advanced technology to thousands of students and teachers who might otherwise not enjoy such experiences due to budget constraints.
P.O. Box 233
Peabody, MA 01960
info@peabodyedfoundation.org