First Lady Crissy Haslam Hosts a Read20 Family Book Club Event at The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee
NASHVILLE–First Lady Crissy Haslam visited The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee located in Hohenwald today to host a Read20 Family Book Club event at the sanctuary’s Welcome Center.
Mrs. Haslam read the November Book of the Month, The Elephant Scientist, to 14 Lewis County Elementary School 3rd graders. Students from Mt. Carmel Elementary School in Hawkins County in East Tennessee and students from John P. Freeman Optional School in Memphis participated by teleconference using the facility’s distance learning technology. Following the reading, the sanctuary’s Education Manager, Todd Montgomery, taught the students about elephant behavior and communication.
“The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee is the nation's largest natural-habitat refuge developed specifically to meet the needs of endangered elephants,” said Mrs. Haslam. “E-learning can be a great way to expand educational opportunities for students by providing innovative teaching from a distance.”As part of her initiative to promote parent engagement in education, Mrs. Haslam launched the Read20 Family Book Club, giving Tennessee families a fun goal of reading together every day. Books of different reading levels and styles of writing are selected each month to help children foster love for reading and learning. The publisher of this month’s featured book, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt based in New York, donated copies of The Elephant Scientist to The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee who gifted books to each school participating in today’s reading event and the Lewis County Public Library.
“Children can become better readers by finding the type of books that interest them,” said Mrs. Haslam. “The Elephant Scientist is part of the Scientists in the Field series which features people working to understand the science of the natural world, making it more accessible and exciting to readers.”
For more information about the Read20 Family Book Club visit www.tn.gov/read20, www.facebook.com/CrissyHaslam, follow @Read20TN on Twitter, or go to your local public library.