Merritt Elementary School is taking National Reading Month pretty seriously, encouraging students, when in the classroom and at home, to “chill out with a good book.”

Inside the school, evidence of that theme is everywhere. Penguins line the hallway walls, marking the minutes read by each student; an igloo built of empty milk jugs stands in the center of the kindergarten wing. Inflatable penguins sit quietly in hallway corners.

To encourage kids to read, “you make it fun,” said Sara Gleason, who teaches kindergarten at Merritt and has been teaching for more than 25 years.

“It sounds like such a common sense thing,” said John Jarpe, superintendent of Brandywine Community Schools. “But if you don’t emphasize it all the way through, through seniors in high school and you don’t let kids know how important it is, even more important now with the electronic age and the bombardment of information … I think that what we’re going to see is even more competition for kids’ attention and more need for kids to focus and concentrate and comprehend what it is they’re reading.”

Jarpe gives parents and teachers a little something to read on the subject himself in his blog, where he discusses a workshop he attended last week that covered aspects of improving literacy and comprehension.

During the workshop, Jarpe wrote, a study conducted by the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) outlined just how much of an impact the number of minutes children spend reading has in regard to their education.

In its latest release of the nation’s report card for reading, in 2009, the NAEP reported eighth grade scores had improved over the previous report in 2007 and fourth grade scores had held steady. The study found 75 percent of eighth-graders performed at the basic reading level and 32 percent would be considered at or above proficient.

As for fourth graders, 67 percent were at the basic level, 33 percent at or above proficient and 8 percent at the advanced level.

But the fundamentals begin with the youngest students and Gleason said while March may be National Reading Month, encouraging the importance of reading is something that should happen at school and at home each day of the year.

“We encourage the kids to be reading at home,” she said. “That’s the biggest thing.”

During March and in keeping with the chilly penguin theme, Gleason has parents of her students send back to class a little note which shows the book a student has read or had read to them outside of the classroom. Books and minutes are tabulated throughout the school and the students can even win prizes in some cases.

Each teacher, she said, is doing their own individual project to encourage their kids to read.

And, she said, it seems to be working.

“As I watch my students throughout the year, as I read to them and read to them, they’re picking up their own books,” Gleason said.

“The more conversations we can have with kids about reading or concentrating … it’s critical,” Jarpe said. “It’s absolutely critical.”

Another critical aspect is comprehension.

Comprehension in reading various subjects is something educators continue to focus on while working to ensure students are meeting state standards and are prepared for their next level of education.

In the classroom, Gleason said that comprehension is measured by asking students questions, checking to see they understand the story they’re being told.

Jarpe said the district is is currently taking a closer look at its language arts curriculum, “which includes literacy, comprehension — everything connecting with reading.”

The “major study,” Jarpe said, “should culminate in the adoption of a new reading series.”

Officials will examine test scores with state set expectations, “matching up what we do now, according to what the data is telling us with those standards. Then it’s up to our instruction.”

Right now, that instruction, at least inside the hallways of Merritt Elementary School and Mrs. Gleason’s classroom, includes a generous amount of enthusiasm and involvement on the part of both teachers and parents.

Getting students enthused about reading while they’re in the classroom is only part of the process, Gleason said.

“Parental involvement is the most important,” she said. “Parents are first and foremost their (the children’s) most important teachers.”