To help celebrate Read Across America week, the high school Rhodes State College public speaking classes worked with Liberty-Benton literacy coach, Rhonda Smith, and principal, Brenda Frankart, to arrange for high school students to read to grades K-5. Each high school student was given a Dr. Suess book to read aloud to an elementary class, and Mrs. Teders had her high school classes practice a few days beforehand. Her students soon realized reading aloud and holding a book for others to see isn’t as easy as it seems (kudos to all our elementary teachers who do this with ease). The high schoolers also engaged the students while reading and afterwards to address issues and questions brought up in the books. This allowed the high school students to put their public speaking skills to use in a real-world situation. Some expressed how nervous they felt beforehand, but afterwards, they said how much they enjoyed interacting with the younger students. After the reading and discussion, they handed out bookmarks to the students to help encourage reading. Grant Umbs who read to a kindergarten class really enjoyed this opportunity to share reading with the younger students and said, “It was a great experience for us to impact the kids.” We look forward to hopefully doing this again in the future and help promote reading for enjoyment!