Residents in Huntsville-Madison County can experience summer fun and literacy entertainment with their little ones at the third annual Rec and Read, which set for Monday, July 22 at the Dr. Robert Shurney Legacy Center.
Rec and Read is just one event the City of Huntsville is sponsoring for Parks and Recreation Month. The local July-long celebration is a tie-in to the national observance.
“There are recreation departments across the country that recognize that, and they do special activities,” said James Gossett, the parks and recreation director for the City of Huntsville. “We recognize [and] put on special activities in conjunction with Parks and Recreation Month.”
Rec and Read will offer attendees interactive storytelling. Gossett said the event helps families to show their children to various resources offered by the public library.
“It gives parents a place to go, to bring their kids. They can be exposed to all kinds of literature and reading and reading materials,” he said. “As we all know, reading is very, very critical in development and [to] your lifelong education. You got to start at a young age to feel comfortable reading, so that as you age and get older, you don't get behind.”
The National Center for Educational Statistics reports that 15 percent of Alabamians are functionally illiterate. However, the Literacy Council of West Alabama estimates that rate is one in four Alabamians. Functional literacy includes basic skills such as reading, writing, technological capabilities and mathematical computation.
During the 2022-2023 school year, there was no Alabama school district that reported all third graders or second graders reading on grade level, according to AL.com. The statewide evaluation is billed as a basic indicator for student success in future grades.
Alabama tested 52,528 third graders during that school period and 53,937 second graders this spring and found:
--76% of third graders are reading on grade level, a decrease of two percentage points from last year’s results.
--78% of second graders are reading on grade level, down two percentage points from last year.
This comes as Alabama lawmakers worked to pass legislation this year that would have seen librarians prosecuted under the state’s obscenity law for providing “harmful” materials to minors. The Alabama proposal was part of a wave of bills in Republican-led states targeting library content and decisions. The bill did not pass this legislative session. The legislation came amid a soaring number of book challenges, often centered on LGBTQ+ content, and efforts in a number of states to ban drag queen story readings.
The bill would have removed the existing exemption for public libraries in the state’s obscenity law. It also would have expanded the definition of prohibited sexual conduct to include any “sexual or gender-oriented conduct” at K-12 public schools or public libraries that “exposes minors to persons who are dressed in sexually revealing, exaggerated, or provocative clothing or costumes, or are stripping, or engaged in lewd or lascivious dancing, presentations, or activities.”
Under the process laid out in the bill, which did not pass, a librarian in a public library or public K-12 school could face a misdemeanor charge if the librarian fails to remove material or cease conduct that violates the state’s obscenity law within seven days of receiving a written complaint from the public.
The importance of a public library community doesn’t come from literary resources and options alone, said Gossett.
“It gives our kids school-age and preschool kids that might be involved in a program, an opportunity to go in and experience a library, and not just necessarily books,” he said. “A lot of these libraries you can go in, you can listen to music. Some of them have gaming, some of them actually have tech skills that you can go in and work on some of that.”
The Rec and Read event is set to take place on Monday, July 22 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the Dr. Robert Shurney Legacy Center. Other events for Parks and Recreation Month include “Light Up the Night” at Big Spring Park East on Friday, July 26 and a Back-to-School Bash on Saturday, July 27 at the Jaycee Community Building. For more information on these events, click here.
