A group of elementary school educators from Hermitage, Mo. are making their second visit to Chattanooga to get a first-hand look at the reading initiatives of Read Aloud Chattanooga, including Reading Dogs, Read Aloud Murals (including new ones being painted at the Bicentennial Library), and Read Aloud sessions in several locations.

The group from Hermitage Elementary made its first 1,300-mile roundtrip visit in 2004 to hear Jim Trelease, author of The Read-Aloud Handbook. During 2003 and 2004, Read Aloud Chattanooga sponsored two dozen presentations by Trelease to publicly kick off the group's initiative to motivate adults to dramatically increase the amount of time they spend reading aloud to children.

The Hermitage teachers had been studying Trelease's work as part of their school-wide focus on literacy. They were referred by Trelease's office to Chattanooga. So a group of teachers loaded into a small school bus and came to Chattanooga. They attended several presentations by Trelease and returned home to start implementing a Read Aloud program in their school.

"When we came back from Chattanooga, there were teachers who had not worked together before, but now they shared a common interest and began cross-curriculum collaborations with each other to support reading. In my view that all came from that trip," said Sharon Johnson, a member of the original group of teachers who is now principal of Hermitage Elementary.

Another result of the trip was the installation of Rain Gutter Bookshelves, which the group heard about from Trelease and saw in Read Aloud Chattanooga demonstration sites. "Every classroom in grades k-6 has at least a small section of guttering, and some have a lot," said Ms. Johnson. "We have gutters in the office. And we just bought 100 more feet of guttering" to put Rain Gutter Bookshelves in the library for the first time and to add more in classrooms.

The return visit came about because the group kept in touch with Read Aloud Chattanooga.

"A few months ago while I was trying to tell the school principal, Sharon Johnson, about everything we're doing, I casually invited them to come back and see for themselves," said Read Aloud Chattanooga founder Bill Thurman. "I thought one or two might come at the most, but a week later she called me back and said they were going to send another minivan of educators. We talk a lot about learning motivation, but we're usually talking about motivating children to learn. These people from Hermitage are some of the most motivated adults I've ever seen when it comes to learning about reading aloud to children."

READ ALOUD MURALS
One of the programs the Hermitage group will see, which has developed since their first visit in 2004, is Read Aloud Murals. Read Aloud Chattanooga has commissioned over 30 murals in and around Chattanooga by muralist Gail Hinton showing the joy of reading aloud.

The visitors will tour several mural locations, including First-Centenary United Methodist's Children's Enrichment Center, T.C. Thompson Children's Hospital (which has murals on several floors), WSMC radio in Collegedale, and Rossville Elementary School.

The murals typically show children reading in an idyllic setting like a tree house. There are always more than a few tiny ants crawling around reading, shooting hoops, waterskiing, etc. Some murals go for a bit more fantasy, like the underwater scene in one of the T.C. Thompson murals that has scuba diving ants and an octopus using several of its eight arms to read a book on multi-tasking.

The visitors from Hermitage will also watch as the artist paints the newest Read Aloud Murals in the Children's Department of the Bicentennial Library.

"The Bicentennial Library reads aloud to children at about 40 different locations around the community, and they've been doing it for many, many years. I can't imagine that anyone has been doing it longer, and I can't think of a better location for murals about the joys of reading," said Mr. Thurman.

READING DOGS
The Hermitage group will also see Reading Dogs sponsored by Read Aloud Chattanooga -- certified therapy dogs that sit and listen while young children read to them.

Hermitage Elementary's kindergarten teacher has begun creating a Reading Dog program as part of her master's degree. "While she was researching the topic on the Internet, she found articles published about Read Aloud Chattanooga's Reading Dog program," said Ms. Johnson. "She has bought a puppy, and she's hoping to gain some insights on this trip into the ins and outs of a reading dog program, such as training the dog and seeing how others use their dogs to motivate readers."