|
Email Program Founder:
|
AVID Readers was born out of a community’s desire to make a difference in the lives of their city’s children, and out of my desire to share my love of reading with children in my native state. To me, reading is simply more than a pleasure, it has the power to save lives. Reading carried me through those difficult teen-age years and gave me the courage to face and overcome challenges in my life. When I began establishing AVID at Crosstown Learning Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the children greeted me with “Hey, Reader!” I knew the passion was spreading and the children were learning. From reading one-to-one with infants and preschoolers to teaching after-school students how to touch-type using computers. From giving parents novels to enjoy after sharing their children’s bedtime stories to providing children as young as 6 with service-learning opportunities, AVID reinforces the importance of reading and community involvement to everyone’s success and happiness in life. With a year’s experience as a member of AmeriCorps*VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) with the SMART children’s reading program in Oregon, I returned to Oklahoma in 1998 as VISTA Leader with the Oklahoma Department of Libraries and Community Service Council (CSC) of Greater Tulsa. Early in my term of service the CSC executive director asked me to establish a program at the child care level similar to SMART, which pairs elementary school children with reading mentors. Short for Start Making a Reader Today, SMART evoked incredible changes in the children who received one-to-one reading mentoring. I knew all children could benefit from this concept, but I had no idea how quickly and eagerly preschoolers, whose brains are like sponges, would take to the idea. Simply put, they can’t get enough. I began networking with local organizations, child care centers, foundations, and the media, and in November 1998 AVID Readers placed its first volunteer to read one-to-one once a week with two infants at Crosstown Learning Center. Within weeks this volunteer, a full-time employee of PennWell Publishing, read simultaneously with three enthralled infants, gazes fixed on Pam and the story she told. By May of 2001, AVID had expanded into 6 child care centers and one after-school program serving nearly 500 children with the help of 8 AmeriCorps*VISTA members, grants totaling more than $100,000, and 300 dedicated volunteers. The power of words, of stories that help us know ourselves, change lives. Pleas of “I want to read!” ring out from children served by AVID Readers and even from children waiting for volunteers. Their AVID peers return from their 30-minute reading sessions, show their class their new picture book they get to keep, and sit down with a friend and “read” together. Children trade watching videos for reading, hide behind bookshelves with their favorite stories to keep from napping, clamor to go with the new reader who’s at their classroom door. Research shows that the best way to help children reach this enthusiasm is to read to them from birth, and the best way to boost a child’s self-esteem is to show him he’s important. “The one-to-one attention the children receive makes them feel like little bars of gold,” says Evonne Roper, administrative assistant at Crosstown Learning Center. Approximately 75 percent of the children served by AVID receive some type of child care assistance, thus AVID gives families of all socioeconomic levels a home rich in literature. In 2000, AVID gave away more than 3,000 children’s and adult books to families through monthly book giveaways in child care centers, after-school programs and housing complexes. AVID enriches homes with stories children beg their parents to read again and again. “Every time my kids bring home an AVID book they pull it out five times a day and ask me to read it to them,” says a single mother of two children with AVID volunteers. AVID expanded beyond child care centers when VISTA member Barbara Oliver joined the 7-member team in October 2000. Ms. Oliver established a new version of AVID at the Salvation Army Boys and Girls Club after-school program in north Tulsa. The Club had called me asking for reading help for its boys and girls, many of whom still struggled with reading at 12 years old. At the same time AVID had the opportunity to partner with the Federal Work Study program at Spartan School of Aeronautics. Four part-time students, free to AVID as part of the America Reads Challenge initiative, served as reading mentors at the after-school program and at child care centers. All of the after-school literacy activities, which included typing lessons and reading circles, were voluntary for the children. None of them could get enough of the reading, free books, and one-to-one attention they received from the Spartan students, who gained as much from the children as the children gained from them. By engaging youth and other community members as volunteers and by coordinating read-aloud trainings for parents, AVID nearly completes the literacy circle imperative to our children’s future and our own. The final step includes getting children excited about writing through dictating stories to mentors before they can write and learning to journal when they enter those difficult teen-age years. By getting our children excited about reading and teaching them to harness their ability to express themselves, we are giving our youth a chance to play an important role in shaping the future, a role that says to them, “We believe in you.” I believe these are the most important words our youth can hear. AVID is a concept that can be incorporated into any literacy effort. AVID gets communities into schools and children excited about reading. Where would we rather have our children, leaning against a tree with “Treasure Island” or plopped in front of the television, eyes glazed over by the latest violent cartoon? It’s a question I pose to every community across America. As James Baldwin wrote, “These are all our children. We shall all profit by, or pay for, whatever they become.” Get involved, read to a child, and help her become something great.
| |
![[Flag Campaign icon]](http://a1032.g.akamai.net/f/1032/81/30m/www.gamesville.lycos.com/art_gv/ribbon_small.gif){kind=small}
