Yonkers Reads Aloud With Students Around the World
What if everyone in the world could read? LitWorld, a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing literacy education to vulnerable communities, thinks it's possible and YPIE does too! So on March 3, children in all Yonkers pre-K through fifth grade classes joined students around the world in the first "World Read Aloud Day," thanks to support from YPIE and the Yonkers Public Schools.
This global event was intended to motivate children, teens, and
adults worldwide to celebrate the power of words, and especially those
words that are shared from one person to another. In participating in
"World Read Aloud Day," Yonkers students joined thousands of people in the U.S. and in
more than 35 countries around the world, including India, Ghana,
Australia, and Austria.
For this event,
YPIE provided all Yonkers Public Schools pre-K through fifth grade
classes with a copy of the book Listen to the Wind, the inspirational
true story of Greg Mortenson and his tireless efforts to build schools
in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mortenson's adult version of the book, Three Cups of Tea, is a worldwide bestseller. Classroom teachers
read Listen to the Wind aloud with their classes and discussed the power
of reading in their community and throughout the world. In a class
assignment, a third grader from School 32 wrote the following letter to
the author:
Dear Dr. Gregg,
My life was hard before you came. I had to write with sticks and we had no schools. A teacher came 3 days a week. When you came, life became better. Now we have pencils, paper, building and library. Thank you for all you did.
“We were thrilled to participate in such an important initiative.
Reading is one of the most important keys to learning and it's wonderful
to give students such rich and meaningful reading material,” said Wendy
Nadel, YPIE Executive Director. “This inspirational story will provide a
launch pad for students to think about the world in a different way and
relate Greg Mortenson's story to their own lives.”
Yonkers students participated in a worldwide event to promote reading.