SLIDESHOW: Wally the Green Monster Visits Framingham Elementary To Support Summer Reading Program

Wally the Green Monster and Red Sox relief pitcher Craig Breslow made a surprise visit to Brophy Elementary School in Framingham Friday morning.

The event was to celebrate Brophy Elementary's special summer reading program.

Over the summer, the elementary school holds a special summer reading night at the main Framingham Library. Teachers and staff volunteer their time to the program.
The main goals of the Brophy Summer Reading program is to increase students' and families' access to books, to increase the volume of students' independent reading, and to equip students with reading strategies to help them to become more successful, joyful, independent readers.

The events are designed with a Reader's Workshop model in mind: a focus lesson; guided practice; plenty of time for reading, academic conversations with peers, teachers and families and, of course, time for checking out books; and then finally, time to debrief and celebrate our reading work.

Brophy families also learn specific ways to interact with their child to foster language and literacy development during the program.

This summer is the third year of the program.

During yesterday's program, Wally entertained the audience of K-5 students, while southpaw pitcher Breslow read about one of Wally's adventures, from the Wally book series.

Before Wally and Breslow made their surprise appearance, the students had assembled in the gym with their teachers and were discussing reading and sang a song about reading to the tune of the song Summer Nights.