West Buncombe Elementary School (WBES) students recently stepped into a cozy “Winter Wonderland” designed to celebrate the joy of reading.
Organized by the school’s literacy team, the event invited classes to spend dedicated time reading together in a festive environment. Throughout the day, classes rotated through the decorated theater space during their Eagle Reading time. Surrounded by lit trees, snowflakes, polar bears, and penguins, students brought books, poems, and fluency folders to enjoy quiet reading time with their teachers and classmates.
“It’s a chance for the kids to read and realize that it doesn’t always have to be for a purpose set by someone else,” said WBES Title I reading specialist Beth Evans. “It can just be reading for themselves, reading for the joy of it.”
The Winter Wonderland reading day is part of a larger series of literacy events held throughout the year. While some events focus on specific literacy strategies, such as inferencing or summarizing, this one was designed simply to celebrate reading for pleasure.
“Anything that makes something feel special makes it more important,” Evans said. “This is about increasing the love of reading and taking time to just enjoy a book.”
