This year marks the tenth anniversary of one of my favorite days, Jumpstart’s Read for the Record day. On October 22, children and adults worldwide will take action by participating in the world’s largest shared reading experience. This year’s book is titled Not Norman: A Goldfish Story, written by Kelly Bennett and illustrated by Noah Z. Jones. The goal is to promote public support for high-quality early learning and highlight the importance of building our children’s vocabulary and love for reading, and to break the world record (again) for the most people reading the same book on the same day.

Once again, I will take part in this year’s Read for the Record program with elementary school children in the 21st Senatorial District. This year I will be visiting students of both Braymer C-4 Elementary (Caldwell County) and Wellington-Napoleon Elementary (Lafayette County) to share with them the joy of reading. Not Norman: A Goldfish Story is a humorous tale about a child who finds a friend in an unexpected place, it’s always a lot of fun to share a book with our state’s most precious resource, our children.

Early childhood education – as well as elementary, secondary and higher education – continue to be a major focus for lawmakers and I am certainly proud of the work the General Assembly accomplishes for education in Missouri. As chair of the Senate Education Committee, I look forward to carrying on this tradition. Recently, the Institute of Education released a report detailing that children who read for pleasure are more likely to score higher than their peers in math, vocabulary and spelling. You cannot deny the value of reading.

For more information about Jumpstart’s Read for the Record project, or any of their other wonderful programs, you can visit www.jstart.org.  As always, please feel free to contact me or my staff with any questions or concerns at any time. We look forward to hearing your comments and suggestions and trying to answer any questions you may have. You can reach us by phone at (866) 277-0882 (toll-free) or (573) 751-2272, or by fax at (573) 526-7381.

Senator David Pearce serves Caldwell, Carroll, Howard, Johnson, Lafayette, Livingston, Ray and Saline counties in the 21st State Senatorial District.