Read Across America: A Guide + Popular Ideas to Celebrate

Before we jump into all the ways your school can celebrate Read Across America, let’s walk through a few frequently asked questions you might have:

What is Read Across America?

The National Education Association (NEA) created Read Across America to celebrate the birthday of Dr. Seuss, using it as a springboard to celebrate the joys of reading. Since the first Read Across America Day in 1998, the program has expanded to become a week-long event for many schools. The week of celebrations begins every March 2nd, providing students with various challenges and activities that encourage them to read.

Now, the entire month of March is known as National Reading Month, with ongoing campaigns that call for schools all over the U.S. to champion a love of reading for young learners.

Why is Read Across America important?

With an estimated 45 million participants across the country, Read Across America brings a host of benefits for everyone involved by:

1. Encouraging a love of reading. Reading is an important skill for success in school and life. By promoting reading and encouraging a love of reading, Read Across America helps to instill this competency in children at a young age.
2. Improving literacy rates. By promoting reading and encouraging children to read more, Read Across America helps to improve literacy rates in the country.
3. Promoting cultural awareness. Dr. Seuss's books are known for their fun and imaginative stories that often include themes of diversity and cultural awareness. By reading these books and participating in Read Across America, children can learn about different cultures and broaden their understanding of the world.
4. Building community. Read Across America events often take place in schools, libraries, and other community spaces, bringing people together to celebrate reading and literacy.

To harness all of these benefits, your school should prepare activities that appeal to all of your students, regardless of their relationship with reading.

How do you celebrate Read Across America?

Every school celebrates Read Across America in its own way. Some might designate a few minutes of class time for reading, while others plan an exciting week of class vs. class reading challenges, live book reading sessions, and school fundraising campaigns.

Of course, not every school has the resources to go all out during Read Across America. However, any institution—from small preschool programs to bustling middle schools—can level up its Read Across America plans with Read-A-Thon's simple, easy-to-use, and incredibly lucrative fundraising platform.

Many schools search for more productive ways to raise money, particularly during important times of the year such as Read Across America Week. Since the celebration already focuses on reading, this makes a Read-A-Thon the perfect fundraising idea to incorporate into your school’s activities. During the event, students will try to log as many minutes of reading as they can, while all their friends and family make donations to cheer them on.

Plus, Read-A-Thons cost nothing to start and require few to no volunteers, so you can focus on educating your students about the pleasures of reading. The Read-A-Thon platform comes with all the tools you need to track participation and spread the word about your fundraiser, including:

• Customizable donation pages for students
• Free digital and pre-printed flyers
• Real-time reports of fundraising progress

You can either create your own incentives for students or choose Read-A-Thon’s prize store model to make the process easier for your school fundraising team.

There’s a lot of planning your school needs to do to coordinate all sorts of engaging activities for your student readers. Fortunately, it only takes a few simple steps to get started with a Read-A-Thon:

1. Sign up for a free Read-A-Thon account.
2. Use Read-A-Thon’s free marketing tools and materials to promote your fundraiser.
3. Monitor minutes read and donations earned on the Read-A-Thon dashboard.

Throughout your Read-A-Thon, share reading and fundraising updates to encourage your students. Whether you’re an elementary school or a PTO group, Read-A-Thons are designed to be as easy as possible to get up and running.

While Read-A-Thons are the leading choice for Read Across America fundraising, there are several other ways you can raise funds for your school during this time:

• Book fundraiser. Love My Library is a highly popular option for schools and libraries that want to raise money by hosting book fairs during Read Across America. These can take place online and include a variety of books and activities.
• Donations. You can directly ask for community donations to support your Read Across America activities, either through online fundraising platforms, mail-in donations, or in-person solicitations.
• Merchandise sales. Your school can sell merchandise related to Read Across America, such as t-shirts, backpacks, book lights, and tote bags.
• Book drives. You can collect donations of new or gently used books for your school to sell during its Read Across America events.
• Sponsorships. Your school can seek sponsorships from local businesses or community organizations to help fund its Read Across America events. In return, you can give sponsors naming rights for events and advertising in your event materials.

Regardless of which Read Across America fundraiser you choose, inspire families and community members to get involved by emphasizing your ultimate goal: to develop a lifelong love of reading and learning among your young students.

Read Across America is a time for thinking outside of the box to engage students in reading. To level up your school’s efforts, consider these ideas:

• Plan class vs. class competitions. Start a friendly reading competition among your classes. You can plan a pizza party, create a special trophy, or organize some other reward for your top-performing classes.
• Launch social media reading challenges. Social media is a powerful marketing channel for Read Across America. Consider creating reading challenge days throughout March with special hashtags that students can use, such as a #FairytaleFriday for reading fantasy storybooks.
• Bring in guest readers. Make reading more exciting for your students by inviting guest speakers such as local athletes, authors, or television personalities to read to your classes.
• Create a book scavenger hunt. Challenge students to find books from home or the local library that meet certain criteria. For instance, you might have a "Tales from Another World" day where students present stories about different cultures, countries, or even planets to their class and discuss what they learned.
• Costume party. Help your students feel more immersed in the stories they read by having them dress up as their favorite book characters. They can take turns presenting their character and the story they’re from to the class.
• Buddy reading. Pair an older student with someone from a younger grade for a buddy reading session. Doing so can help the older student gain confidence and the younger student find a reading role model they can look up to.
• Make bookmarks. Having an eye-catching, handmade bookmark to look at can be an added incentive for students to pick up a book and keep reading. Hold a craft session in class with lots of cardstock, markers, ribbons, and stickers for decorating.

Get as creative as you can to keep students interested throughout the week. Make note of which ideas are especially popular to adjust the Read Across America activities you plan for the next year.

Read Across America is not just a time to embrace reading and storytelling, but a chance to invest in the success of your school’s students. By hosting a Read-A-Thon and other activities that bring your whole community together to celebrate the life-changing impact of reading, you can boost academic performance and raise funds for your school.

To learn about more fundraising ideas that capture the spirit of learning for your students, check out these additional resources:

• 55+ Smart School Fundraising Ideas for Any Occasion. Find the perfect fundraising ideas for your school, no matter your size or the time of year, by exploring this comprehensive list.
• Online Fundraising For Schools: 11 Ideas + Tools For Success. Learn how your school can boost engagement and raise more funds by launching online fundraisers.
• 10+ PTA Fundraising Ideas Your School Community Will Love. Keep your PTA fundraising ideas fresh by reading through this guide.