Actors Help Educate

So, guess who cares about education? Actors and actresses like Rainn Wilson and Jane Kaczmarek think helping kids become characters helps educate them. A recent three page advertisement was published in the September, 2008 issue of People magazine. The Screen Actors Guild Foundation's ad was called Get Ready to Play. I thought the ad was really innovative and just what many kids need to help make learning fun. The ad provided eight tips to help kids with reading comprehension and simply appreciate reading books more.

1. For younger children, choose books with rhymes and repetition. This helps kids join in reciting lines.
2. Use props, like stuffed toys, to represent characters.
3. Video your family acting out a favorite book.
4. Visit http://www.storylineonline.net/ to see popular actors read kids' books.
5. Perform gestures to illustrate your name. (I didn't see the point of this exercise.)
6. Play charades and act out favorite characters. (They suggest acting out movie characters, but I would suggest acting out characters from books you want your kids to understand more to aid in reading comprehension.)
7. Remember the game Telephone? Well, this is similiar...Start a story line and let each family member add the next part of the story. This builds imagination, creativity, and helps kids learn how to sequence a story.
8. Build kids ability to express themselves by having them "walk like you're stepping on nails." (I think this is more just for fun, rather than a learning exercise for helping language arts skills.)

I thought this was a great advertisement and appreciated the Screen Actors Guild Foundation paying for an ad to promote education through drama.