Raising A Reader MA has just completed our 8th Rodman Ride for Kids and I am so grateful to all of our riders, volunteers, and generous supporters for making it our most successful one yet! Thank you all…in a world of unlimited need and limited resources, I’m grateful that you’ve chosen RAR MA as a program worthy of your attention. Author Barry Lopez says that sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.* Stories are especially critical for urban, low-income children who, on average, spend 6-7 hours/day in front of the television. If a child does not get to hear stories they may be fooled into thinking that the world is not a miraculous place – and it is. It is my pleasure to work with you as we strive to reduce the inequalities in opportunity for so many young children by giving parents the tools they need to share their stories.
Stories are powerful things; people from cultures all over the world have been telling stories as long as there have been others to listen. It’s tradition, it’s timeless, it’s important, and it’s available to everyone, no matter their nationality, their literacy abilities, or their native language. I come from a long line of storytellers. In my family, it’s the stories of my grandmother’s early years in Italy and her arrival in New York that captured my attention. As she spoke I could visualize her native country with the warm colors of the sun and the verdant green landscape…. once she arrived in New York, her stories took on a much darker palette. My grandmother did not know that sharing her stories with me was a critical component of my early brain development – we just knew it felt good to both of us. But we now know that when parents/caregivers share stories with children, they are enhancing the actual architecture of a child’s rapidly developing brain, building a solid foundation for future educational success.
And this is what excites me about our work – RAR MA impacts the lives of children by teaching their parents and caregivers how to most effectively share stories with them, and why this activity is important. We provide simple, ongoing training to parents and caregivers that is based in research, and that training is coupled with an ongoing rotation of bright red bags filled with age and culturally appropriate children’s books to young families in high need communities. Parents do not have to know how to read in order to use these books.… what’s important is that they sit with their child, share a book, and tell them stories. Now this is significant – and it’s pivotal to the success of the program. We are working with many families who have never had a practice of reading in their homes, with a goal of breaking that ongoing cycle of low literacy that directly contributes to the academic and social failures that affect so many children.
Stories are powerful but so is the act of sharing them…I hope you will join us as we empower families across the Commonwealth to share their stories with their young children. It’s a gift that will last a lifetime.
*Remember on this one thing, said Badger. The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other’s memories. This is how people care for themselves.