Head of School's Letter - January 30, 2026 - Literacy & World Read Aloud Day

Dear Families,

When students ask about my favorite books, I almost always name A Prayer for Owen Meany and Animal Farm. They are very different novels, but they sit side by side for me because both grapple with the same enduring questions: how power is used, how responsibility is carried, and what it means to act with integrity when the stakes are real. They are not books I admire simply for their craft; they are books that deepened my thinking about right and wrong, while also managing to make me smile and connect me back to my childhood growing up on a pig farm.

These questions do not wait for adulthood. Last week, I spent time reading with a first grader who picked out a book about Rosa Parks to read. The language was accessible and the story straightforward, yet the moral center was unmistakable. At its heart was a familiar tension: the moment when an individual must decide whether to accept what is easiest, or to act in alignment with what they know to be right.

This is why literacy matters so deeply, and why World Read Aloud Day, which we will celebrate on Wednesday, February 4, is more than a symbolic moment at Brookwood. Reading aloud is often a child’s first encounter with complex ideas about fairness, courage, and consequence, while also nurturing creativity, humor, and empathy. It is where listening becomes thinking, and where stories begin to form an internal compass.

Our literacy curriculum builds strong readers and writers through phonics, vocabulary, spelling, and structure, and it also invites students to analyze, question, and articulate their thinking. Through shared texts and thoughtful discussion, students learn how to express ideas clearly, listen with intention, and engage respectfully with perspectives beyond their own.

Our school traditions reflect this belief. World Read Aloud Day, One School One Book, and the Harold W. Wise Declamation Contest all place student voice at the center. They affirm that stories are meant to be shared, ideas are meant to be spoken aloud, and learning to communicate thoughtfully is essential preparation for life.

Stories give shape to our values long before we have words for them. They teach us to notice injustice, to imagine responsibility, and to consider what it might mean to act with integrity.

Warmly,
Jon