JEROMESVILLE — AJ Brown, Jake Haven and Holand Young held onto the book “Nuts to You,” a picture book about a squirrel that breaks into a house and gets lured out with nuts.
The three basketball team members sat on the bleachers in Hillsdale Local Schools’ gym. When a younger child came up to them, they opened the book and started reading.
Brown and Haven, sophomores, and Young, a junior, participated in the district’s Reading on the Court event Monday night.
The event, in its third year, brings Hillsdale’s high school athletes and Book Club members into the gym to read to the district’s pre-K through fourth grade students. This year, around 40 students in pre-K through fourth grade came to read with the older students.
“It helps inspire them to look up to us,” Haven said. “They’re the future of our school.”
The Hillsdale academic boosters put the event together, according to the district’s curriculum director, Alyson Baker. All the young students went home with a free book at the event’s end too, thanks to Bendon Publishing.
Why does it matter?
Baker said the boosters have made reading and literacy a big push at Hillsdale Local Schools. According to Jill Meyer, the kindergarten through fourth grade media specialist at Hillsdale’s library, that effort shows in Hillsdale.
It’s Meyer’s first year in the district, and she said she’s been overwhelmed by the number of students at Hillsdale who love to read. This type of opportunity, she said, gives younger students confidence.
They enjoy when the “big kids” give them attention.
Samantha Brightbill, a nurse with a 6-year-old son, said he loved having the basketball team read to him. She said he went from team member to team member for the whole hour. Brightbill hopes it makes him want to read more.
Baker added it’s a good thing for the high schoolers, too.
“It helps our older kids and athletes to remember they are role models, and they have little eyes looking at ’em,” Baker said.
That’s something Gracelynn Cutlip, a freshman Book Club member, understands. Cutlip said she loves reading, and enjoyed a chance to share that love with younger students.
To her, being a role model means being someone children want to share values and morals with. She hopes she can do this with reading.
“Reading is an important part of life and a great way to have fun,” Cutlip said.
Below are photos from the event:
