A dear friend heard that I was involved in Raising A Reader MA, and asked me to speak with her son about the organization. He is a 7th grade student in an affluent community on the North Shore of Boston, and his class had been challenged with creating a project that would help make the world a better place.
I asked him about projects other classmates had organized. Among others, he mentioned a neighbor who had created bumper stickers and sold them to support the cause, and that the student had been covered in the newspaper for the effort. I also asked when the project was due (in a few months), and if he had any thoughts about the kind of project he might like to spearhead (no, but he was interested in hearing about Raising A Reader MA).
Over the next hour we talked of the importance of reading and its impact on early brain development in children. I told him that there are many families that do not even have a single book, and that the children in those homes had never enjoyed the experience of reading a book with their parents. He had been raised with books, and remembered his parents reading to him, and we discussed some of the reasons that parents may not have books or read to their children.
We discussed how Raising A Reader MA provides books to children at no cost; helps parents to understand the importance of reading to their child’s education, and teaches them tools to share books with their children, even if they can’t read themselves. It made sense to him! He realized how much a parent reading to their child impacts their readiness for kindergarten.
I asked if he could imagine how a child might feel if he were the only one in his class who couldn’t read, couldn’t follow along with the other students. His response was straightforward and without hesitation: “Yes, I had trouble reading and by second grade I realized my classmates could read, and I had started falling behind. By third grade I was really getting lost.”
This young man had been diagnosed with dyslexia at the end of the 3rd grade, and had experienced first-hand, the feelings of falling behind in school from a lack of reading skills. Over the years, and with lots of work on his part, and a great deal of help from his parents and teachers, his reading skills have become strong. Now in the sixth grade, he’s a confident reader.
He gathered up some books from his shelf to donate, and we stopped by the Chelsea Library to check out their celebration of Family Literacy month, and to see Raising A Reader MA in action. We enjoyed watching a police officer reading to a group of kids and saw first-hand how dialogic reading and the serve-and-return tools worked. The kids were engaged and participating.
My young friend has a few months to decide on a community project, and he may decide to model it on Raising A Reader MA. We discussed options for book sales to help raise funds; or teaching his classmates about dialogic reading skills so they can read to siblings; or writing a blog for us to help us understand how it feels to have difficulty reading surrounded by classmates who do not. Whatever organization he decides to work with, on whichever project – you can be sure he will enjoy researching it by reading.
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Joan Jolley has consulted for several nonprofits, including The Boston Common Frog Pond Skating Rink, ICA, and First Night Boston. In addition to her role on the board of Raising A Reader MA, Joan serves as an advisor to Privateer International, was appointed to the Dedham High School Council, and is immediate past president of Boston West Toastmasters. Joan graduated from Babson College with degrees in Finance and Quantitative Methods, and lives in Beacon Hill.