This coming Wednesday, March 2, is the National Education Association's (NEA) Read Across America day, timely celebrated on Dr. Seuss's birthday. Dr. Seuss, one of our Nation's best and most well known author of children's books, would definitely be proud that so many people celebrate his birthday by reading their favorite books. Each year, the NEA helps celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday with their reading awareness program, Read Across America. The program encourages every child, in every community, to celebrate reading.

Every year, people young and old participate in Read Across America activities to show children of all ages how exciting it is to read. In 2004, over 25 million children, teenagers, and adults participated. This year, I encourage you to participate as well.

I hear about the benefits this valuable program provides every year and it continues to serve as a reminder to all of how important reading is, especially to the children of our Nation. Our youngest generation is constantly flooded with new technology aimed for use during free time, while they can be educational, nothing should take the place of reading. Many children today are watching TV or playing video games instead of reading. Books may never be more popular that the new technologies of today, but it is incredibly important that we continue to read to our children and try to get the young people of West Virginia immersed in reading.

In order to keep America strong at home and a leader in the world, we must continue to equip our future generations with a great education. For this to happen, we must have a strong public education system from pre-school all the way through college. Our elementary schools, high schools, colleges, middle schools and universities need the federal funding to give our children a top rate education. To have a strong education system, we cannot make senseless cuts to programs like Vocational Education and Upward Bound. These types of programs are essential to educating our youth, and ensuring that the United States has strong educated leaders for the second half of the 21st century.

Of course, our schools cannot educate our children alone. As adults, we must do our part to educate the children of our society. We can help in so many ways, and today I am focusing on the importance of reading to the children of our Nation. I urge you all to participate in Read Across America on March 2, by going to a local school or community center to read to one child or a group of kids. Not only will it make a huge impact in their lives, it will also leave you feeling wonderful about the help you have given to the community.

The more people who participate in this program, the more excitement about reading we can spread throughout southern West Virginia. This annual NEA event is a great idea, but I hope it does not start and stop on Wednesday. We should all try our best to read to children each and every day. By getting out in the community and reading, we are doing our part in making reading exciting to the children of West Virginia.