Simple Things Community, Cultural and Religious Organizations Can Do to Help All Children Read Well and Independently

Adrian H. Cline, Superintendent

July 8, 2003

1. Encourage the staff of your organization or the members of your group to volunteer as tutors to read with children. Contact literacy programs already in place through local schools, libraries, or other community groups and offer volunteers from your organization to support their work. Offer release time to allow staff to meet with students.
2. Start a community reading program. Encourage your members or staff to volunteer as tutors. Provide transportation for children and tutors. Offer your organization's building as a safe site in which the program can take place.
3. Work with preschool children. Donate children's books to an early childhood center or preschool program. Organize a program in which members volunteer to read to children in these programs each week.
4. Sponsor trips to the local library. Help provide transportation or escorts for neighborhood children during weekly trips to the library. Ask whether any children have special transportation needs such as a wheelchair lift and try to link them with an escort who can meet those needs.
5. Get families involved in local reading efforts. Parental involvement has a crucial impact on children's academic achievement. Encourage families whose children have special needs to participate in local reading efforts.
6. Think of ways your organization's expertise can help make stories come alive for students. By adding music, movement, or improvisation, performers can help students respond to and better understand a story. Develop a weekly storytelling hour at your organization, using your members' individual talents.
7. Help train other volunteers. Work with reading specialists from your school system to obtain training for your volunteers. Request assistance from your school district's special education office to provide training for volunteers working with students who have learning challenges.
8. Help students write their own stories and produce them in book or dramatic form. Students may develop more interest in reading the stories of others once they have tried writing themselves. Organize an event for the students to read or perform their written work.
9. Hold an essay or speech contest among local children on the topic of how "Reading Has Made a Difference in My Life." These stories can reinforce the benefits of learning to read and help set high reading standards. Offer a small prize related to literacy, such as a reference book or a bookstore gift certificate.
10. Cooperate with other community organizations and school staff on reading activities for students. Rarely can one organization or individual do it all. Contact other community organizations that have different expertise from your own. Ask for and offer help to improve and expand your reading activities. Contact other reading programs and school staff for guidance.
11. Find quality books for a wide age range that reflect the interests of children in your community. Offer these in the form of book lists or actual books to your local reading program. Offer to supplement the reading with related activities.

Information for this column was provided by the United States Department of Education.

The Office of Adrian H. Cline, Superintendent, is open from 7:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. Monday – Friday. Please visit the district web site at: www.desotoschools.com.