Read Me a Story, part 1

As I started my second year of retirement this fall, I decided that I needed to do more volunteer work, and I remembered an organization to which I had give money in the past:  The Reading Connection. A nonprofit started by some Arlington teachers 27 years ago, TRC is committed to putting books in the hands of children who might otherwise not become readers.  Two incredible statistics that I learned when I attended the September orientation are: 

·      A child needs to hear approximately 1,000 stories before s/he can begin reading alone.

·      If a child isn’t reading on grade level by the end of third grade, the correlations between dropping out of school, getting arrested, and other sad fates go way up.  WOW.

·       

To that end, TRC sends volunteers weekly to 12 different sites in Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, DC and Montgomery County.  The sites are typically affordable housing complexes or transitional housing situations.  Each weekly read-aloud has a site-specific theme.  We read books around that theme to the whole group for about 20 minutes and then divide the children into smaller groups to read an additional 15-20 minutes.  There’s an organized activity designed to extend the theme in some way, and the hour ends with the children selecting a book from a collection provided by TRC to add to their own libraries. 

I go two Monday evenings a month to a site in Arlington where our themes have included Pancakes, Ideas and Imagination, Halloween (where the activity was "turn your friend into a mummy), Around the World and, just this week, Fantastic Beasts (inspired by my viewing of the new J.K. Rowling movie and a wonderful exhibit at the Denver Science Museum on extinct animals).  The fun parts (from my point of view) are finding the books and sharing my enthusiasm for reading with the kids.  I like doing voices and making the reading an interactive experience.  

In addition to the readalouds, TRC also runs workshops for parents to teach them about reading to their children.  If you live in the DC area and would like to volunteer or just donate money to buy books for children, check out their website:  www.thereadingconnection.org.