From libraries to laundromats: Ingenious community partnerships promote literacy

Melanie Garcia-Macias, nine, reads a book provided past literacy system Westward County Reads while her mother does the wash at Clean Express Coin Laundry in Richmond. Credit: Lillian Mongeau, EdSource Today

Galvanized by a national reading campaign, communities across California are launching innovative partnerships that are resulting in new early literacy programs in schools, libraries and fifty-fifty laundromats.

"There's a lot of books here, really good books," said 9-year-old Melanie Garcia-Macias, who sabbatum with her back to a big red bookshelf at the end of a long line of washing machines at the Clean Limited Coin Laundry in Richmond one recent Wed. A copy of "The Night Earlier Christmas" was splayed open up on her lap.

"You lot tin accept one home, but you have to bring i back or bring one from your home to supplant it," she said. "I retrieve it's a pretty skilful program."

The plan – giving students free access to engaging titles while their parents fluff and fold – is just one of the ingenious means communities are opening doors to literacy through the national Campaign for Grade Level Reading, sponsored by the Annie Eastward. Casey Foundation.

Children who are not reading on grade level by the end of tertiary grade – 53 percent of California'southward children – are four times more likely to drop out of high school, co-ordinate to research by the foundation. That correlation, which the foundation offset wrote about in 2010, kicked off the Entrada for Grade Level Reading. The campaign offers information, technical support and admission to fundraising opportunities and then that community leaders can better organize around the goal of improving literacy in young students.

Communities that bring together the entrada exercise non become straight financial support, nor are they given specific objectives. Rather, they are asked to collaborate with other local groups on projects concentrating on early education, chronic absence and summer learning. That flexibility has immune the 17 participating communities in California to tap into their creativity to help heave students' reading levels – like the program operating in the laundromat in Richmond's low-income Nystrom neighborhood.

The books, donated by residents and the Richmond Library, belong to a system of "take i, leave one" bookshelves placed in businesses throughout the metropolis past local literacy grouping West Canton Reads. Children are encouraged to bring borrowed books back and trade them in for new ones, but there'due south no penalty for keeping the books at home. The program has given out 15,000 books so far this year.

The bookshelf at Clean Limited is pretty hard to keep stocked, said parent volunteer Tana Montero.

"It says that kids really want to read," Montero said. "They love books and they're excited about them. There's not plenty access to books."

Montero would know. She lives in the Nystrom neighborhood with her children and works at a local charter school. She suggested the Clean Limited to West Canton Reads staff when she heard they planned to place bookshelves around town – which is exactly the kind of community collaboration the campaign encourages.

"The local communities understand and know their issues and challenges the best, better than anyone else," said Alicia Maldonado, spokesperson for the national entrada in California.

Volunteer tutor Paulyn Macadangdang, 15, holds up a sight word flash menu for Luis Barrera, viii, during a summertime reading programme at the downtown co-operative of the Stockton Public Library. Credit: Lillian Mongeau, EdSource Today

Not every community has created new programming every bit a result of the campaign. Some places, such every bit Oakland, Los Angeles and San Francisco, already have significant pro-literacy programming in place. For those communities, the benefit of condign involved in the national entrada has meant a risk to marshal the efforts of multiple agencies.

In other communities, the campaign has had a more straight impact.

In Fresno, for case, the head of the public housing authority was then swayed by what he heard about the importance of reading on class level past tertiary course that he formed a partnership with First v Fresno to bring AmeriCorps volunteers into the housing developments and piece of work with parents and young children on pre-literacy activities like reading together and creating artwork.

Stockton librarian Suzy Daveluy said she knew children in her city were struggling with reading, based on the number of help requests she got from parents. Merely she didn't realize how bad the literacy crisis had get until she met with national entrada leaders.

"What I can credit the campaign with is opening my eyes upwardly to some of the realities that our children are facing," Daveluy said.

She decided to take the library'southward summer reading program to a new level. Students had always been able to sign upwardly and win small-scale prizes for reading a certain number of books, merely Daveluy felt that wasn't plenty.

"I wasn't sure it was really helping the kids who suffer severely during the summer and actually lose reading skills," she said. "They needed something more, something more intensive."

This summer, she decided to do something nearly information technology. She started by tapping into some of Stockton'south known resources: its teachers and teenagers.

Daveluy asked teachers to recommend children in grades kindergarten through three who were struggling with reading and writing, and worked with a retired teacher to programme a 10-calendar week tutoring curriculum. So she recruited and trained 25 teenage volunteers to teach the classes.

Now, 35 to 45 students show upwardly at the library three times a week for hour-long sessions to work on their reading in groups of 3 or less. The result, on a recent mean solar day, was organized anarchy.

KaiNu Moore, 5, reads a book to Boris, a patient pug, at the Lakeview Branch of the Oakland Public Library. Credit: Lillian Mongeau, EdSource Today

Irene Cruz and Alissandra Soriano, both 7 and headed to tertiary grade, sat at 1 table reading a volume aloud, trading off paragraphs, while their xv-year-former tutor helped them pronounce the harder words.

At some other table, a tutor used white boards to help her students learn about consonants and vowels. "A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y," soonhoped-for 3rd grader Xavier Reyes, 7, recited, then looked at his tutor. She held upwardly her hand for a loftier five. The male child grinned, slapped 5, and turned dorsum to his work.

At all the same another table, Azeneth Perez and Luis Barrera, both viii, responded as quickly as they could to flash cards containing "sight words," words children their age should know at first glance. Azeneth, who volition start fourth grade in a few weeks, shouted out a series of answers, then told her tutor that this set of cards had grown likewise easy. The teen smiled and went to find a box with a larger range of words.

The participating children were given the San Diego Quick Assessment, a standard literacy test, on the first day of the program to determine their current reading level. The test consists of 10 sight words per grade level, starting with words such as "on" and "all" on the preschool level and moving up to more than complicated words. Tutors keep rails of the words the children read correctly and rails how far into the lists they are able to progress. When the Stockton students were tested v weeks subsequently their tutoring had begun, most of those who had been attention regularly had already moved into the word list for the side by side form level.

Selena Durell started bringing her 6-year-former girl, Olivia, to the program because she was worried about her daughter starting second class. Durell knew the girl was behind, just couldn't afford tutoring sessions to assistance her catch upwardly.

"I'grand so ecstatic that they are offer free tutoring, considering usually you have to pay for something similar this," Durell said.

Olivia is caught upwards at present, her mom said, and thinks reading is fun. She'south even checked out books to bring abode and read to her cousins and friends. The trivial girl still isn't big on complete sentences, but when asked to talk most the people who are helping her this summer she becomes positively verbose.

"They help y'all read and they help you lot write," she said. "They assistance you learn stuff and so when you go to 2nd grade, you read above your grade level."

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Source: https://edsource.org/2013/reading-rocks/36847