It’s always amazing to have a little reading material during your daily drive to work (as long as you’re not the one driving!). That’s the reason why Julie Callison, a special education teacher and bus driver in the Drew Central School District in Arkansas, constantly has a stash of books in the front of her bus for kids on her route to read.
The Arkansas Department of Education profiled and shared photos of her amazing mobile library on Facebook.
“Special Education teacher Julie Callison of the Drew Central School District decided to create a culture of reading on her daily bus route,” they wrote.
https://www.facebook.com/arkansased/posts/10157571080322788
Children can be seen holding up their pick of reading material for the day alongside a photo of the “bucket of books” from which they can choose.
“The way this works is, when students get on the bus they can get up to three books,” Callison says in the post. “After they read those, they can share with students around them, then put them in the bucket on the way out the door.”
Callison says that the students also read to each other and that, on Friday evenings, a high school or middle school student acts as the “special guest reader.” for the bus.
“They pick out a book, sit on the front seat and read it over the speaker to the whole bus,” she says in the post. “They love this!”
Commenters on Facebook thought this was an incredible idea, and the post has since gone viral, racking up more than 4,000 shares. People shared their enthusiasm for the idea in the comments, with many saying they hoped the idea would be put into place at their children’s schools.
Scholastic Book Fairs even wrote in to praise the concept, writing, “We LOVE this story!”
What an awesome teacher! We’re so glad that educators like Callison go above and beyond to inspire a love of reading in their students. Here’s hoping her fun idea catches on all over the country.