Parents and teachers across the county and around the world have been concerned about the toll that virtual learning is having on students. After a conversation with a friend who authored a children’s book, Shereá Burnett decided she could do something to help in Alamance County. She reached out to some other friends on social media about showcasing authors of color reading their children’s books on Zoom or Facebook. “My thought was that children of color may find inspiration to read and even to explore their goals by seeing characters and authors who look like them,” she says.
It didn’t take long for Burnett’s virtual reading event to get off the ground. “There was a lot of excitement about the idea, so I facilitated a planning meeting and the ball started rolling from there,” Burnett explains. While initially the goal was to only have the series last through Black History Month, she says it is now scheduled to go through mid-May.
By having the event videos on Facebook, parents and teachers are able to play the videos for children either as they are working with them during the school day, as a stand-alone activity or as a bedtime story in the days following the live event. Each book that has been read provides important messages and lessons for the youth. Best of all, they are learning in a fun, more relaxed setting while being kept safe from COVID exposure.
The virtual reading event doesn’t target a specific age group, but the majority of the authors have written or read books that are targeted to elementary or middle school-aged children.
The event has several co-sponsors: Alamance Achieves; Allied Churches of Alamance County, Inc.; Burnett’s Chapel Christian Church; Ellena N. Gean Books (Adrienne Barr); Future Alamance; Genesis Child Development Center; The K.E.Y.A. Foundation; ThisWomansWords (Shereá Burnett); and the WNCC Western District Social Action Commission (Reverend Tamara Kersey).
Burnett is particularly grateful for the support provided by Alamance Achieves. “Working with Lexy Roberts has been amazing! She has provided literacy resources for me to advertise during each reading event and has also provided wonderful information and opportunities for parents and school personnel to give feedback about things like summer learning,” she shares. “This provides our adult viewers with viable action steps for how to continue to promote literacy and/or to give feedback about things that are not working.”
Since getting the program off the ground, Burnett feels that the series has driven home the point of how important it is for children to see people who look like them in the books that they read or that are read to them. “It’s not just important during their respective history months, but all year long,” she says.
Questions? Email sherea.burnett@gmail.com
