Read Across Iowa Month

Read Across Iowa is a special event hosted throughout the month of March to encourage literacy in youth. Hosted and created by the Iowa Agriculture Literacy Foundation, this month-long celebration offers plenty of resources for communities and motivates participation of families.

Read Across Iowa is beneficial to participants in multiple ways. Reading in youth improves intelligence and success rates in future years. It’s also a great stress reliever and keeps kids’ minds active! Read Across Iowa not only encourages reading in youth, but also teaches participants about local agriculture! Learning about agriculture is extremely important for youth, as it allows children to learn about local careers, what agriculture is, and why it’s important for our economy and world. Learning about agriculture also contextualizes learning!

Read Across Iowa offers agriculturally themed books, materials, and other resources that’s appealing for students of all ages. This event also offers kits, both hard copies and virtual, that offer multiple books and reading materials that revolve around the agriculture theme. This years 2022 kits offer the following:

My Family’s Beef Farmer by Katie Olthoff

Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table by Jacqueline Briggs Martin

Right This Very Minute by Lisl H. Detlefsen

The Kid Who Changes the World by Andy Andrews

Sylvia’s Spinach by Katherine Pryor

Read aloud tips

Links to other activities

Links to bookmarks with educator and parent tips

These amazing, educational resources are still available virtually on the Iowa Ag Literacy website (Read Across Iowa (iowaagliteracy.org)) as well as the links to various virtual events. Live book readings, meeting the author, virtual tours and more are available throughout the month of March. Linn County Education Outreach also hosted a live reading on March 1st via Facebook, where Education Outreach Coordinator Morgan Hibbs read My Family’s Beef Farm by Katie Olthoof! Visit https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.facebook.com/LinnCoAg/videos/1591524294561316&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1646246854626887&usg=AOvVaw0aWP63Kp91ZWp7pZOXgwDU to watch now! Don’t miss these great events!