We can rely on you every year to give us a fresh injection of literature!

Dear Reader To Reader,

Thank you so much for your annual contribution of books to our school. The books have been used to augment the classroom libraries and the school library, and we were even able to give books to parents so their children will have books to read at home. We really appreciate the program, and that we can rely on you every year to give us a fresh injection of literature!

Thanks again, we really appreciate your program.

Yours sincerely,

Mary Luff, E.L.A. teacher
William N. DeBerry Elementary School
Springfield, MA

Doris Hiatt Mentoring Program Doubles in Size

Enthusiastic Amherst College students from diverse backgrounds gathered together as Reader To Reader launched the third year of the Doris Hiatt Mentoring Program.

The Doris Hiatt Mentoring Program has more than doubled in size again for the 2009-2010 school year. The online mentoring program began in 2008 with 7 mentors. In 2009, 17 mentors were hired as three new schools joined the program, and for the 2009-2010 school year over 40 mentors will help students across the country explore books, build academic skills, and develop a love for reading.

The innovative mentoring program brings together children from low-income backgrounds and college student reading mentors to read books and discuss them online in a specially designed forum. The students not only receive positive feedback and academic support, but also much-needed role models.

Jim Trelease, noted literacy advocate and author of The Read-Aloud Handbook has been a strong supporter of the program.

"With online connections now present in most urban schools, we've got one half of the personal 'mentoring' program in place. David Mazor's Reader To Reader project now completes the formula, providing top-notch college students as mentors via the Web and email.” Trelease explains. “What the program accomplished with motivating Native-American youths while connecting them to college-age mentors 3,000 miles away is one of those unsung success stories that deserves national recognition. It begs the question: Why isn't it being adopted by other cities and rural districts across the nation?"

It is always nice to add new books to our collection

Dear Reader To Reader:

Thank you so much for the donation of books to our library. It is always nice to add new books to our collection, and one of our English teachers is keeping the advanced reader copies in her classroom for the students to read. We appreciate your generosity!

Sincerely,

Ellen Stein
Librarian
Holyoke High School
Holyoke, MA

New Orleans Children Go Back To School with Elephant & Piggie!

Caldecott Award winning children’s author Mo Willems has teamed with Reader To Reader to make back to school a special time for the children of New Orleans.

Thousands of first and second grade students of New Orleans’s public schools are getting their own personal copies of Willems’s delightful Elephant & Piggie books and The Pigeon Wants a Puppy as they begin their school year.

Reader To Reader is working with the Recovery School District to distribute Willem’s books to all the elementary schools.

The Recovery School District was created in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to rebuild the schools destroyed by the devastating 2005 hurricane.

Troy Peloquin of the Recovery School District was delighted to have the donation.

“Love it! Love it! The teachers adore it! It’s a really fun project,” Peloquin notes.

Author and illustrator Mo Willems grew-up in New Orleans and is looking to make a long-term commitment to the children of New Orleans. He shared his motives for making such a large donation.

"I suppose there was a confluence of being a native New Orleanian, having discovered that having books in the home is a determining factor in later educational success, and the waves of Katrina washing away some of my complacency,” Willems says. “I'd sent books to three schools the year before, so including more schools seemed a logical step towards a small gesture that I hope to continue for decades."

Mo has a heart as big as all of Louisiana!” says Reader To Reader executive director David Mazor. “He has done something truly special for these children.”

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just received 5 boxes of books from you. I am putting approximately three boxes worth into the library and giving the other two to the students, so they can take them home.

I thank you, my students thank you!!!

Christine Demski, Librarian
Mary M. Walsh Elementary School
Springfield, MA

Reader To Reader Launches Costa Rica Project

Reader To Reader is proud to announce the launching of Beyond el campo, a new books and computers donation initiative to build school libraries in rural Costa Rica.

With project Beyond el campo, Reader To Reader will work together with severely under-resourced high school students in rural Costa Rica in an effort to strengthen their educational resources and expand their academic community.

Project Beyond el campo will team with local community members to build a new school library, and provide librarian training to local community members by our Spanish-speaking certified library technician, in order to make the library sustainable and 100% community-run.

The second half of the project includes creating an on-line mentorship program between bi-lingual Amherst College reading mentors and the Costa Rican students. The online mentoring will not only bring students the supplementary support lacking in the classroom environment, but will introduce students to crucial technological skills, and through networking with successful U.S. students, inspire the students to bring innovation and entrepreneurship to their local and greater community and excel beyond “el campo” (Spanish for field or countryside).

The project will be headed by Caitlin Scudder, an Amherst College student and Reader To Reader’s new Assistant Director of International Programs.

Caitlin began her affiliation with Reader To Reader as a reading mentor in both the Navajo Mentoring Program and Doris Hiatt Mentoring Program. This summer she helped establish the Summer Enrichment Program, which works with low-income Native-American students in an intensive three-week program on the Amherst College campus.

"I am thrilled about this project and the opportunity to bring what we do at Reader To Reader to the schools in Costa Rica that need it most," Scudder says. "Having spent significant time within a rural Costa Rican school community, I have seen the need and know the passion these kids have to learn is real. By equipping schools with the crucial tools they need in order to make their classrooms academically successful, we are making it possible for these schools to improve the quality of education they give to students, and help them enable students to strive for heights they never knew were reachable."

Phase one of the project focuses on Santa Cruz de León Cortés, a small coffee-farming community with low academic achievement and a severely low percentage of students who continue on to higher education.

In the high school’s 2008 graduating class, only 50% of students graduated and received diplomas, and one student alone went on to pursue a university education.

The cycle of academic underachievement and general disinterest originates from a lack of adequate available resources that are crucial to inspire success.

Project Beyond el campo will impact the greater Santa Cruz community by providing the high school with the educational tools and training that will enable the community to be successful; and through connecting students with a support network of U.S. college mentors, will create a bond between the local Amherst College community and Santa Cruz.

For more information on Beyond el campo email: info@readertoreader.org

Retired Teachers Helping New Teachers

The other day a retired teacher from Cleveland, Ohio, came by with an entire pickup truck full of classroom material.

Packed into six large tubs, he brought a treasure trove of bulletin board materials, educational games, student worksheets, maps, charts, and other resources that he had accumulated over his 30 years as an elementary school teacher.

Every year we have a number of retiring teachers that want to pass on the resources that they created and acquired over decades of teaching. Rather than throw it out they wisely want to donate these resources to young teachers who often pay out of pocket in order to fully equip their classrooms.

We are so glad we can play a role in helping one generation of teachers reach out to another.