PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	March 2, 2007

         BUFFALO, NEW YORK (Friday, March 2, 2007) – “Reading is entertaining and educates at the same time. It’s a basic life skill that can also transport a child to many different places when they read. That’s why the BTF and its membership are extremely happy to involve ourselves in Read Across America Day. This helps promote an interest in reading, which really should be a life-long enjoyment for each and every one of us,” he said.

Read Across America Day is a countrywide event sponsored by the National Education Association (NEA). It is aimed at spreading the message that reading is important, fun, opens the door to achievement and is a crucial building block towards making the joys of reading an integral part of every child’s life. The annual Read Across America Day always coincides with the late Dr. Seuss’s birthday (this year would have been his 103rd). Many public school classrooms across the city have taken on a Cat in the Hat theme today, including some where students were treated to a morning breakfast of green eggs and ham, complete with BTF teachers dressed in Seuss t-shirts and Cat in the Hat garb.

BTF representatives, meanwhile, also delivered to mothers of every child born in Children’s Hospital, Sisters Hospital and Mercy Hospital a small bag filled with a book, BTF coffee mug, pen and a Read Across America brochure detailing the event and its importance.

In addition, the BTF included a note for new mothers “from” their newborns, which read: “Dear Mom, Today is the biggest day of my life. It is the day I was born!

A whole world of living awaits me, and the Buffalo Teachers Federation, hoping to help me prepare for the joys of learning, has provided me with my first book. This activity is part of Read Across America, a celebration of the birth of Dr. Seuss. Please, please Mom, read this book to me as often as you like. I have so much to learn! Feel free to read more and more often from a variety of books because, as you know, children will do better in their schoolwork when the family reads to them. Someday you will be so surprised to hear me read to you. I can’t wait to make you proud of my accomplishment.

Thank you Mom. You had better rest now for you will have to save your energy for a lifetime of shared reading experiences.

Love, Your New Bab"

As part of Read Across America Day, the BTF/NEA offers the following tips for parents of young children as a means for encouraging reading:

• Start early. Try to read books with your child every day.
• Show how the printed word works. Move your finger from word to word.
• Check your child’s understanding. When you read to your child, explain to them what is happening. As your child gets older, ask them to predict what may happen, whether they liked the story at the end and why.
• Surround your child with things to read and have writing materials in your home. Let children see that reading is an important part of your life too.

The BTF’s involvement in Read Across America Day continues the long and proud tradition of BTF programs aimed at the city’s public schoolchildren and the local community.

The BTF also prints and hands out more than 47,000 orange bookmarks in classrooms in an effort to make sure schoolchildren have a happy and safe Halloween as they travel through city neighborhoods trick or treating. Just prior to Thanksgiving, thousands of dollars in food and gift certificates are donated by BTF members to more than 120 needy families throughout the Buffalo area by several charitable and non-profit groups in an effort to “make sure those families enjoy a ‘meal of thanks’ on Thanksgiving Day.”

In addition, the BTF and its members raise and donate tens of thousands of dollars to numerous charitable and worthwhile causes throughout the Buffalo area.

“This is the way the BTF and its membership have chosen to continue to show Buffalo and Western New York that we are committed to our teaching profession, the city’s schoolchildren and the local community. We are both happy and pleased to continue to play this role as we continue to serve our children and the community,” BTF President Rumore said.