Imagine 300+ families reading one book simultaneously.

At Hillcrest School, they are accomplishing this through a project called “One Schoo One Book.”

Stacey Lang the Learning Support Teacher, "Well, we started reading The Big Friendly Giant on March the 1st and so every week the kids have chapters that they are supposed to read about. They go through each chapter at home and they get 4 chapters a week, and that's going to last us until the 18th of April. Then we will wrap it up with some final activities that they can go through. Each week we will do different questions and activities that will go along with the book, and talk about it with those in the classroom or have some assemblies as the weeks go on."

We know bringing families together through literature can be a strong bond to help connect parents to their children's schooling by a single book. We also know that many parents want to help at home.

"Well, the parents at home, grandparents, uncles, aunts or whoever wants to read the book at home with them they can read and help their child read through the book."

One of the best ways to help is by reading aloud. With One School One Book, the school came together to read one chapter book at the same time, usually over the course of a couple of weeks.

"We're super excited we had a countdown before the February break on the board, just saying it's going to begin in 3 days, 2 days, and the kids didn't really know what was happening so the kids were like, "What's happening? What are we doing? So they were really excited to get on board with it and then when they came back after the break we had it all announced on the board."

Reading with your family is a great way to encourage literacy in our community.