Reader to Reader's New Literacy Explorers Summer Program Builds English Skills

This summer we launched Literacy Explorers, our new summer program at the Amherst Regional Public Schools in Amherst, Massachusetts. 

A rotating team of nine interns and three Reader to Reader staff worked with eight kids, often one on one, to discover books and other activities that made for a fun learning environment.

Working with kindergarten students whose home language is not English, or who simply want more time to practice English skills over the summer, we created a story-rich environment full of opportunities to read and write.

Over the program's three weeks, students worked on projects such as creating their own alphabet books, designing letter-themed t-shirts, writing and illustrating short booklets, various crafts, and drawing accompanied with verbal and written word practice.

We hope we made as much of an impact on these kids as they made on us. We'll sure miss them!

Literacy Explorers is a part of Reader to Reader's DiscoverBooks Program.

Helping Dad's Make a Difference

We are so happy to be providing books through our DiscoverBooks program for HCS Head Start's "Dads Make a Difference" event and parade, in Holyoke, Massachusetts, again this year. 

Dads, kids, and books -- what a great combination!

Making Life More Bearable!

Just some of the 40 teddy bears we are giving out to children in the DiscoverBooks program.

Funding for the DiscoverBooks program comes from the AEC Trust,  the Irene E. & George A. Davis Foundation, and the F.I.S.H. Foundation, Inc.

Yes! The Books Are Free!

“How much are the books?”

“Are these really free?”

“How many am I allowed to take home?”

These were the questions we were excitedly asked all afternoon at Family Fun Day last week in Holyoke, where Reader to Reader gave out almost 400 books. Families with children from infants to teenagers were invited downtown to Heritage State Park to take part in fun kids’ activities and talk to representatives from local organizations. 

Reader to Reader ‘s table was stacked high with children’s, young adult, and adult books,  surrounded by an eager crowd of children and parents the entire afternoon! Everyone enjoyed themselves pouring over the books and selecting their favorites to take home.

Parents talked amongst themselves about how much their young children loved reading out loud together, and how happy they were to add new selections to their home reading options.

One mother with two young toddlers said she was relieved and grateful to have the new books to keep, because she gets so worried that her babies will tear the pages of library books that she finds it hard to enjoy the time spent reading with them.  

Meanwhile school age children were bursting with enthusiasm looking through the piles as they found books about some of their most beloved characters, books focusing on a theme that they were interested in, or something new that sparked their curiosity. 

Two of the most passionate young readers we met, a fifth grader and a seventh grader, circled back again and again over the course of the afternoon, checking if it was okay for them to take another book home with them.

Of course the answer was yes! Go forth and read! 

Funding for our Massachusetts book donations comes from the Xeric Foundation and the F.I.S.H. Foundation, Inc.

‘We Are Inspired’: Learning about Martin Luther King Jr. Day in Encamínate’s Multi Level Classroom

 Reader to Reader’s literacy program, Encamínate, is back in full swing at Kelly and EN White Schools in Holyoke, MA! Parents from the fall have welcomed in nine new parents in the first week alone and both groups are excited about moving forward. These parents bring a special brand of optimism and enthusiasm for learning to the program each day, which is what enables quality learning to take place in our multi-level language environment. 

Let’s take a close look at how multi-level classes function at Encamínate.  For example one lesson last week was focused on a theme, the upcoming Martin Luther King Jr Day.   After the morning routine of basic conversation and weather, we started with the whole group together calling out words to describe MLK and forming a word cloud on the board. Those who didn’t have enough English to express their ideas were encouraged not to hold back but to go ahead and use Spanish. This way everyone benefited from the debriefing of MLK’s persona and life’s work. New English vocabulary words were explained and noted down by all. Next everyone listened to the last 5 minutes of the I Have a Dream speech, while reading along with a transcript to enhance comprehension. Afterwards the group made another word cloud all together about the emotional content in the speech and how they felt while listening to the recording, even if they couldn’t understand all of the language. More advanced students verbally translated the main ideas of the speech into Spanish, explaining more vocabulary words like “freedom” and “prodigious.”  Next the group analyzed a hand out with graphics comparing racial discrimination today with that of the 1960’s, which led to a quite vigorous bilingual discussion amongst all.

 Finally, after a brief break, the group split into levels. Those who were more advanced read a short biography of MLK Jr, and while reading worked on identifying irregular past tense verbs and regular past tense verbs in the text. After the first silent read through, they took turns reading sentence by sentence out loud, snapping when an irregular verb in past tense was read and clapping when a regular verb in past tense was read. After this they formed teams of three and used the biographies and a short timeline of important events in the life of MLK Jr to make a poster using images that were provided and put together a 2 minute oral presentation for the rest of the class.

Meanwhile, the less advanced students worked on practicing sentences in simple present with the verb “to be” in negative and then question forms. First they completed fill in the blank worksheets to warm up. Then they put away their notes and started the speaking activity: taking turns making sentences by drawing a card with a pronoun written on it, conjugating the verb “to be” accordingly and then pairing it with one of the emotion words that we had written on the board to describe the I Have a Dream speech earlier in order to form a full sentence. For example someone might draw the pronoun card “we” and select the word  “inspired” from the board to then form the sentences “We are inspired,” “We are not inspired,” or “Are we inspired?”  For the last ten minutes, the three teams of more advanced students gave their presentations on the life of MLK Jr for the rest of the group.

Parents come to Encamínate to learn English and to benefit from the family literacy and school engagement opportunities that the program offers. Learning or reviewing about MLK Jr, just as their children are doing at school at this time of the year, will help parents support their children’s learning and will naturally boost conversations and sharing of information at home amongst the family. Every parent can be an asset to their children’s educational experience and Encamínate strives to empower and inspire parents in their role. 

A Bear Can Be A Best Friend

A bear can be a best friend!

Just in time for the holidays, Katy Moonan, Reader to Reader’s Family Literacy Director, gave out teddy bears to the children of the parents in the DiscoverBooks program in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

This young fellow is taking his everywhere he goes, his mother reports.

It doesn’t get any better than that.

Spotlighting One Parent’s Experience with DiscoverBooks

One mother’s story in the DiscoverBooks Program

Rose, mother of four boys including a second grader and fifth grader at EN White School, moved to Holyoke, Massachusetts two years ago from Puerto Rico. Like many immigrant families, she moved here so that her children could have access to better education and opportunities. With the whole family speaking only Spanish at the time of their arrival, it was a tough adjustment.

Her two older sons now speak perfect English, but for Rose learning English has been a slower process. This has long been a source of frustration given that she is eager to get a good job to better support her family. Her lack of English has been the primary barrier to accessing good jobs, but what was equally difficult was the sense of feeling unconnected from the systems in her new country. She was often overwhelmed by how hard it was to understand the way things work—from not knowing how to prepare for or find a good job, to struggling to understand what was expected of her son for a school research project.

This year Rose took part in Reader to Reader’s DiscoverBooks Program, which helped her to move forward in many ways. The time spent helping parents learn English allowed her to improve at a faster pace than ever before. Spending time at her son’s school and learning about the critical importance of family literacy has made a world of difference for the whole family. Rose observed regularly in her sons’ classrooms and gained a better understanding of the school environment and behavior expectations. She also got to meet many of her sons’ teachers and become familiar with the school staff.

For the first time, Rose attended the Parent Teacher conferences. She felt comfortable since she had met the teacher through program activities activities. Using what we had practiced in class, she was able to proudly communicate with the teacher almost without a translator. One of her son’s teachers came up to the parent class teacher and told her that Rose had never come to a conference before. This time she had not only showed up and had the confidence to communicate in English, but had also been prepared with pertinent questions and an understanding of her responsibilities as a parent in supporting her children’s progress in school.

Now, Rose has a clear career goal, to become a CNA, and knows what steps she has to take to get there. This is thanks to the knowledge of job opportunities she gained through the time spent in class on career exploration. Likewise, her improving English is what’s allowed this to become a reachable goal. Rose looks forward to continuing to learn so that she can take the next exciting step of working a job that can support her family.

Rose took advantage of all that was being offered through DiscoverBooks. She made the jump from being a parent that assumes her children’s education is primarily the school’s responsibility to being a parent that takes the lead in supporting her children’s academics and development. She is able to understand and stay on top of her sons’ homework duties. She reads every night to her sons and it has become a favorite family pastime to read and act out the stories together. Rose is a model of what this program is designed to achieve.

(pictured above) Rose reading and acting out “I’ll Follow the Moon” in a presentation put on for a second grade class at EN White School.

Reader to Reader’s DiscoverBooks Program receives generous support from Mary Ann Cofrin and the AEC Trust, the Target Foundation, and the Irene E. & George A. Davis Foundation.

More Families Benefit from DiscoverBooks Program in Holyoke

It has been an amazing first year of the expanded DiscoverBooks program in Holyoke! Reader to Reader started the program in 2010 to offer a rich family literacy program to young mothers at the Care Center in Holyoke and Central High School in Springfield.

This year the program has expanded to work with immigrant parents at two elementary and middle schools in Holyoke. As of this year the main feature of DiscoverBooks is a combined ESOL and Family Literacy class for parents that takes place at the school their children attend. Parents learn English in order to further their own educational and work goals as well as to support their children’s needs. Meanwhile, the program focuses on helping parents learn more about the importance of literacy and parent involvement in education.

Since October 2012 this expanded branch of DiscoverBooks has served over 40 Holyoke parents. Together these parents have a total of over 60 children ranging from 1 year old to 18 years old in the Holyoke Public Schools, who are benefiting from their parents’ increased abilities to support their literacy and educational achievements. Here are some highlights from the year:

-Increased parent participation in Parent Teacher Conferences and school events
-Increased reading at home
-Each parent took home more than 40 books over the course of the year
-Two wonderful family fieldtrips, to museums in Springfield and to an ice skating rink.

Parents from the program were joined by their families to go on these fun trips that took place during school vacation weeks.

-Two great parent fieldtrips, to Career Point to explore work opportunities and to UMass to explore educational opportunities for themselves and their children.

-A beautiful Page to Stage presentation of the book “I’ll Follow the Moon.” Parents worked with Enchanted Circle Theater to put together the show, complete with props, musical effects, and parents reading out loud in English.

This summer, the program has continued and with the added component of a partnership with the Gill Technology Center. The program now includes English and family literacy in addition to computer literacy and the use of IBM-developed ‘Reading Companion’ software. This software is designed for parents to help their children become better readers. It is ideal for English learning parents because it allows them to practice their own reading in English, using headsets which help to correct their pronunciation.

Giving Away Books At Family Fun Night

Reader to Reade gave out hundreds of free books at Family Fun Night in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

The book giveaway was part of an effort to spur reading during the summer vacation period.

Combating summer learning loss is critical, because studies have shown that summer learning loss can set back low-income students more than two months in reading achievement. (Cooper, 1996)

The book giveaway is a part of Reader to Reader’s DiscoverBooks Program, which receives generous support from Mary Ann Cofrin and the AEC Trust, the Target Foundation, and the Irene E. & George A. Davis Foundation.

Athena Program Heads Into The Recording Studio

Reader to Reader’s Athena Interactive Literacy Program headed into the recording studio as the teen mothers in the summer program recorded their spoken word poetry.

The week-long Athena Program works with teen mothers from Holyoke, Massachusetts and takes place on the campus of Amherst College.

The program combines poetry, family literacy, and healthy eating and cooking.

Each of the participants took turns recording their poems, and some even incorporated beat-boxing and piano tracks in their work.

The Athena Interactive Literacy Program is part of Reader to Reader’s DiscoverBooks Program, which receives generous support from Mary Ann Cofrin and the AEC Trust, the Irene E. & George A. Davis Foundation, and PeoplesBank.

A very special thank you to Northfire Recording Studio for the donation of the recording time.

Athena Program Combines Literacy With Cooking

Reader to Reader’s Athena Interactive Literacy Program launched its week-long workshop that combines poetry, family literacy, and healthy eating and cooking.

The Athena Program works with teen mothers from Holyoke, Massachusetts and takes place on the campus of Amherst College.

Chef Bill Collins conducts the healthy eating and cooking lessons and he’s always a big hit. Today’s lesson focused on the versatility of the egg for creating low-cost meals.

The first day also featured a poetry and spoken word workshop conducted by Reader to Reader staff person, Ophelia Hu.

The poetry will be recorded at Northfire Recording Studio on the second day of the program.

The teen mothers are students at The Care Center in Holyoke where they are working on receiving their G.E.D. diplomas.

“This is our fourth year running the Athena Program and we are so pleased to partner with The Care Center,” notes David Mazor, executive director of Reader to Reader. “We have tremendous admiration for The Care Center’s commitment to improving the lives of these young women and their children.”

The Athena Interactive Literacy Program is part of Reader to Reader’s DiscoverBooks Program, which receives generous support from Mary Ann Cofrin and the AEC Trust, the Irene E. & George A. Davis Foundation, and PeoplesBank.

Adding Their Voices to End Violence Against Women

This Valentine’s Day, parents from the DiscoverBooks program at Kelly School in Holyoke, Massachusetts added their voices to the call to end violence against women at the One Billion Rising event in Springfield. This event was part of the international V-Day feminist movement founded by Eve Ensler, which deplores the fact that one in three women across the world will experience rape or physical abuse in her lifetime. The V-Day campaign this year called for a billion women and men around the globe to walk out and dance in protest of the violence.

Before the outing, the mothers in the program discussed the important women in their lives, citing mothers, grandmothers and friends as their sources of strength. As a group we came to the consensus that we wouldn’t be where we were today if it weren’t for the love and sacrifices of these women in our lives. We then acknowledged another commonality: that we all knew women and girls who had suffered sexual or physical violence. Dancing to protest this violence was a great way to spend our Valentine’s Day afternoon. We danced with anger at the violence, but we also danced with hope—hope that our dancing would contribute to crafting a more peaceful world for women.

“My daughter loves to see me studying at her school”

“Good luck mommy!” said six year old Amaderis to her mom as they parted ways in the Kelly School hallway. Amaderis went into her kindergarten classroom while her mom, Adneris Rosario, carried on to the Kelly Family Literacy Center to join her own class of other parents. Reader to Reader's DiscoverBooks classes have started up again in Holyoke, Massachusetts!

Parents of Kelly and EN White Schools are improving their English while learning how to support and advocate for their child's education. Being in the schools and classrooms of their children has a strong effect on parents and kids alike, and each week families bring home new books to read and share!

Parents learn and practice English through activities that promote literacy as well as positive parent involvement in their child’s education and school community.

“My daughter loves to see me studying at her school,” Adneris says, “And so do I because I feel at home here now, whereas before I would drop her off but never come in the building.” Abimael Rosado, father of four children at Kelly, feels it’s beneficial for both himself and his family that he is participating at the school. “My children are more motivated to come to school when they see their dad studying here,” he says. “It also helps me be more connected and by learning English I can help them with their homework.”

We are very excited to be supporting these families: the image above shows real feedback and images of participating parents. For more information on DiscoverBooks, read http://reader2reader.blogspot.com/2012/12/discoverbooks-integrates-english.html

Your help in securing books was invaluable!

(Thank you letter received by our Family Literacy Coordinator, Katy Moonan.)

Dear Katy,

Thank you so much for volunteering for the Three Kings Day Celebration. Your help in securing books was invaluable. Parents and children were excited to receive the books. We saw many of them reading in the hallway while waiting to enter the cafeteria. I hope we can count on you for next year!

Every year we anticipate the Three Kings Day Celebration and all the music, dancing, books, presents and conviviality that our students and their families enjoy with us. This year, we had more than 800 people attend the event. Each child received a book bag, a book, and a gift from the Three Kings. The children and their families enjoyed music, a traditional Puerto Rican dinner and a performance by a traditional dance group of students from our own schools.

An event of this size is not possible without the efforts of many volunteers and donors. All of us in the Holyoke Public Schools’ English Language Learners Department and the Mayor’s office for Early Literacy want to thank you for your time, donations, and support of this annual event. We look forward to next year and hope you will consider volunteering again.

Sincerely,

Linda Amaral,
Holyoke Public Schools

Andrew Melendez,
Holyoke Early Literacy Coordinator

Co-Chairs,
Three Kings Day Celebration

DiscoverBooks integrates English language learning with family literacy

Reader to Reader's DiscoverBooks program is off to a great start in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

At Kelly and EN White Schools the program has a dual purpose: teaching English to Spanish-speaking parents, as well as family literacy with a special focus on parent involvement in the schools. This model has proved very beneficial!

The key to successful language learning is putting the new language skills to use in a real-life context, and this is exactly what the schools provide. Meanwhile parents learn and practice English through family literacy materials, as well as activities that promote positive parent involvement in the child's education and school.

In November the program sessions centered around preparing for parent teacher conferences. Parents learned English that they could use to role play parent-teacher dialogues. They reported that this practice helped boost their confidence in their ability to communicate with the teacher during the conferences!

Jessica Reyes, mother of four children at EN White, reports that "I like going to English class [at EN White] because I am learning how to relate to the teachers and how to understand my children's homework."

The program has also been innovative in putting in place parent classroom observations in the schools. This event was particularly powerful because most of the parents hadn't met their children's teachers before. The time spent in the classroom environment of the children was very beneficial for the parents.

Iris Toro, mother of a first grader at Kelly, said "I felt very comfortable seeing how my children were given the attention they need. It helped me understand my children and their teachers better."

Wanda Delgado, mother of seventh grade twins at Kelly, says "I felt comfortable, because I didn't know the teacher before and I saw my sons were relaxed. The experience was very positive for me personally."

Each school has a group of about 10 committed parents who come to the school twice a week for the class. The class now represents a community of parents that are engaged with each other and with the school-from taking the initiative to create a class snack rotation, to being more comfortable with the school space and staff, to volunteering at the school. Both schools have embraced the program.

Kelly School principal Jacqueline Glasheen says, "This program has really brought the parents into the fold of the school community. The visits to classrooms, preparation for conferences, as well as learning in the same building as their children has made a positive impact on the parents. It has been beneficial to the school and the families!"

We are proud and grateful for this strong start and look forward to continuing the program in the New Year.

DiscoverBooks is made possible by funding from the AEC Trust, the Irene E. & George A Davis Foundation, the United Way, Target, and the Holyoke Food and Fitness Policy Council.

Parents' Resource Center Gets Furnitures and Computers

New furniture and computers are just some of the things Reader to Reader is helping bring to the new Parents’ Resource Center at E.N. White Elementary School in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

The furniture was generously donated by Conklin Office Furniture and the 4 Dell computers were donated through Reader to Reader's Computer Donation Program.

The Center is home to our DiscoverBooks Program that works with parents. The program teaches them literacy skills that will enable them to better support their children in school. The program also teaches English to non-English-speaking parents that have children attending the school.

DiscoverBooks is made possible by funding from the United Way, Target, the Holyoke Food and Fitness Policy Council, the AEC Trust, and the Irene E. & George A Davis Foundation.

DiscoverBooks Summer Program Makes Summer Literacy Fun & Healthy

Our DiscoverBooks summer family literacy camp came to a close last week, and we couldn’t be more proud of our families. After six weeks of learning, reading, and fun we had a celebration of all their hard work. Congratulations, everyone!

DiscoverBooks works with families and young parents to help their children become better readers from an early age. As parents discover the aspirations they have for their children and learn how to encourage their children to succeed, they also learn of the responsibility they have to continue their own education and the amazing opportunity they have to be their child's first teacher.

The families worked with Katy Moonan, Reader to Reader’s family literacy coordinator, to learn about why learning together was important, how parents could help kids be better readers and learners, and about the 7 habits of effective readers. Each habit was teamed with a set of books and activities, centered on the theme of the week. We made inferences from poetry, visualized the text of “To Be an Artist,” and connected with “Who Belongs Here?” The kids and parents loved being visited by zoo animals, going to the farm, and being read to by local authors.

Our good friend Chef Bill Collins came to each school to talk about healthy snacks, alternatives to unhealthy ingredients, and cooking techniques that made family favorites healthier. He also showed the families how to make perfect devilled eggs, complete with paprika garnish. (Yum!)

To see more photos of our program, check out the album on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/readertoreader.

This branch of DiscoverBooks was run in partnership with the Holyoke Public Schools, Enchanted Circle Theater, Marcela Kelly Elementary School and EN White Elementary School.

The program was made possible by funding from the United Way, Target, the Holyoke Food and Fitness Policy Council, the AEC Trust, and the Irene E. & George A Davis Foundation.

Chef Bill Brings Smiles to DiscoverBooks

Chef Bill Collins visited Reader to Reader ‘s DiscoverBooks Program at Kelley Elementary in Holyoke, MA. The energetic chef helped the participants explore healthy eating and cooking.

The 5-week summer program for parents and children combines family literacy activities with a host of hands on activities and is run by Reader to Reader's new family literacy coordinator, Katy Moonan.

In addition to Chef Bill, the program’s partners include the Holyoke Public Schools, the Holyoke Food & Fitness Policy Council, and the Enchanted Circle Theatre.

The DiscoverBooks Program is funded in part by a grant from Mary Ann Cofrin and the AEC Trust, and the Irene E. & George A. Davis Foundation.

Funding for Chef Bill Collins is provided through a partnership with the Holyoke Food & Fitness Policy Council, one of nine collaboratives being funded by the Kellogg Foundation’s Food and Community program which focuses on creating healthy places where all children thrive.

Computers for E.N. White School

Hilary Russell, principal at E.N. White Elementary in Holyoke, MA, surveys her four refurbished Dell Optiplex computers donated by Reader to Reader.

The computers will be used as part of the school’s new Family Resource Center. The center will host Reader to Reader’s DiscoverBooks Program beginning this fall. New family literacy coordinator, Katie Moonan, will work with parents and young children to develop literacy strategies that prepare their children for kindergarten.

The DiscoverBooks Program is funded in part by a grant from Mary Ann Cofrin and the AEC Trust, and the Irene E. & George A. Davis Foundation.

Crafting Your Own Book Through the DiscoverBooks Program

Colored pens, fabric, stickers, blank board books, glue, and colored paper are the ingredients that teen mothers attending Central High School in Springfield, MA, and the Care Center in Holyoke, MA, are using to create their own books to read to their children.

The board book making is part of a seven-session family literacy workshop that is Reader to Reader’s new DiscoverBooks program.


Launched this past fall, DiscoverBooks helps children discover the joy of books at the earliest possible age.

The program goes into schools to help teen mothers learn the family literacy essentials necessary for their children to go to kindergarten with well-developed pre-literacy and early literacy skills. It enables young children to explore the world of books and develop essential pre-reading skills.

In addition to receiving book donations, the mothers and children engage in other activities, such as modeling reading behavior, board book making, letter and number games, and parent and child story creation that add a multi-sensory experience to boost their literacy skills development.