addByline("Kelsey Keena","Celtics.com","Celtics");
HYDE PARK, Mass. – Leveraging the expertise of the Mayor Marty Walsh’s literacy initiative, ReadBoston, Read to Achieve presented by the Boston Celtics Shamrock Foundation and in partnership with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) strives to get Boston elementary school students reading on grade level before middle school.
Throughout the school year, students are awarded with monthly Celtics prizes and the program culminates with a library upgrade for the school that wins the yearlong writing assignment challenge.
Students at Franklin D. Roosevelt K-8 Elementary School in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Boston were rewarded Thursday morning with a schoolwide read-aloud session for reaching the program’s monthly benchmark of reading 20 minutes per day, five days per week.
Celtics guard Marcus Smart joined former C’s player Dana Barros, mascot Lucky, Celtics Dancer Victoria, and HMH Vice President of Investor Relations Rima Hyder as guest readers at the assembly.
Each youth in attendance cracked open the fresh bookbinding of their new copy of HMH’s Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg, unfolding a wild journey. The fictional tale of a jungle themed board game that magically comes to life in a family’s living room brought the Roosevelt student body on the ultimate reading adventure.
Along the way the VIP guests and youth encountered wild animals and extreme weather conditions. Roaring lions, hissing snakes and booming thunder echoed throughout the school as the students summarized the story by visually acting it out.
When asked about the level of excitement while reading, Smart reflected on how fun it was to see the students enjoying themselves.
“In today’s society reading books is something that we miss out on a lot with the advancement of technology,” said Smart, “so seeing the kids out here today having so much fun reading was special.”
Although he’s personally not a fan of snakes, Smart did say bringing the book to life was a great reward for the children who worked so hard to reach the program objective.
“The kids here today all earned it,” stated Smart. “We gave them a goal and they rose to the occasion. They deserved every second of fun this morning.”
At the close of the assembly, the students went back to class with their eyes set on the ultimate prize of winning their school a new library at the end of the school year.