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SANDY -- The best way students can defend freedom and make America a better place is to read. That was the message to a few hundred elementary students from a lieutenant colonel with the U.S. Army.
"It's very important. They're our future, and we need them to be as smart as possible," Lt. Col Don Hansen said.
He and students at Silver Mesa Elementary took part in an assembly centered on patriotism. Many wore red, white and blue as they sang the familiar song "God Bless the USA."
But the underlying American theme of this event was the importance of reading, preferably, say their teachers, 20 minutes a day.
"Twenty minutes gives them the biggest boost ever," literacy facilitator Gladys Hamilton said. "That 20 minutes helps them practice what they've already learned at school and helps their reading increase tenfold."
Silver Mesa is one of 220 Utah elementary schools that take part in the Ken Garff Road to Success reading program. It provides schools and students with incentives during the year to encourage reading goals. Students that meet their goals are eligible to win new bicycles in a year-end drawing.
The program reinforces teachers' call to read 20 minutes, but teachers stress they also need parents to be a partner in literacy.
"If parents could see the difference it makes between a child that reads 20 minutes at home with a parent and those that don't, you would see a great deal of difference," Hamilton said.
E-mail: dwimmer@ksl.com
