“You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read with a child.” is the strap line for Read Across America, the initiative developed to encourage children of all ages to read. Dr Seuss or Theodor Seuss Geisel was born on March 2, 1904 so he would be 110 today. Read across America which is focused on the books of Dr Seuss takes place on the first Monday after his Birthday and so this year will take place on 3rd March. I suspect that our Minister for education would not favour the books of Dr Seuss, but perhaps we could adopt some of the spirit of this inititiave and set aside a day in the year when employers could be encouraged to release some of their staff to go into a local School and do some reading. The news that the average Primary School Teacher works 60 hours a week, 10 hours more than they did only 4 years ago suggests that recent educational reforms are putting an enormous strain on people who we ask to achieve an enormous amount, yet take criticism from all quarters when children are not as well equipped as employers would wish, later on in their lives. In America as well as read across America, they also have National Reading day which takes place in January. Here in the UK we do have National Reading Groups Day which happens on 30th June, towards the end of the School year, but it is not specifically focused on Schools. However perhaps in the interests of supporting our over stretched Primary School teachers, and providing early interventions for the children that will in time be applying for work with employers, we could find a creative mechanism for extending the really fantastic work of the many volunteers who do read in Schools. Perhaps on the 110th Anniversary of Dr Seuss, we could ask the National Literacy Trust to come up with something similar to Read Across America and enhance links between local employers and local schools. Lets call it read across the UK or something similar.