Since our first season, one of the Thunder’s main community-outreach efforts has been promoting literacy. From the Book Bus to the Summer Reading Challenge, we take on a number of initiatives each year that encourage children to engage in reading.

For one of our school-year projects called Read to Achieve, we send representatives from our team into schools hold a “reading time-out,” when they talk about the importance of reading and read a book aloud to schoolchildren. Yesterday, Lateshia and Riane – two veteran Thunder Girls – went to Broadmoore Elementary in Moore and read to four classes of third-graders.

The more than 80 students paid close attention as the ladies read “J is for Jump Shot,” listening to the book about basketball all the way from A (which is for “air”) to Z (for “zone”). They raised their hands when Lateshia asked whether they like to read, and they piped in with all sorts of answers when Riane asked what their favorite part of the book was.

These “reading time-out” events are such a simple concept – take a few people from the Thunder organization, and have them read a book aloud to children – but yesterday’s event made it clear that these simple events have a powerful impact. Just reading to a child, setting the example that reading is important, can encourage them to stick with reading long after the book is finished.

As with every school year, we’ll be doing many more of these events throughout the metro and keeping up our other ongoing efforts to promote a proficiency in and a love for reading.

- Karina Henderson