Simple Things

Community, Cultural, Religious Organizations, and Universities Can Do to Help

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U.S Department of Education

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Simple Things Community, Cultural and Religious Organizations Can Do to Help

1. Encourage the staff of your organization or the members of your group to volunteer as tutors to read with children. Contact literacy programs already in place through local schools, libraries, or other community groups and offer volunteers from your organization to support their work. Offer release time to allow staff to meet with students.
   
   
2. Start a community reading program. One good way to begin is to set up a summer America Reads Challenge: READ*WRITE*NOW! program. Encourage your members or staff to volunteer as tutors. Provide transportation for children and tutors. Offer your organization's building as a safe site in which the program can take place.
   
   
3. Work with preschool children. Donate children's books to an early childhood center, mothers' day out program, or parent/child play group. Organize a program in which members volunteer to read to children in these programs each week.
   
   
4. Sponsor trips to the local library. Help provide transportation or escorts for neighborhood children during weekly trips to the library. Ask whether any children have special transportation needs such as a wheelchair lift and try to link them with an escort who can meet those needs.
   
   
5. Get families involved in local reading efforts. Parental involvement has a crucial impact on children's academic achievement. Take information about local reading programs into the school. Encourage families whose children have special needs to participate in local reading efforts.
   
   
6. Think of ways your organization's expertise can help make stories come alive for students. By adding music, movement, or improvisation, performers can help students respond to and better understand a story. Develop a weekly storytelling hour at your organization, using your members' individual talents.
   
   
7. Help train other volunteers. Work with reading specialists from your school system or an America Reads Challenge: READ*WRITE*NOW! program to obtain training for your volunteers. Request assistance from your school district's special education office to provide training for volunteers working with students who have learning challenges.
   
   
8. Help students write their own stories and produce them in book or dramatic form. Students may develop more interest in reading the stories of others once they have tried writing themselves. Organize an event for the students to read or perform their written work.
   
   
9. Hold an essay or speech contest among local children on the topic of how "Reading Has Made a Difference in My Life." These stories can reinforce the benefits of learning to read and help set high reading standards. Offer a small prize related to literacy, such as a reference book or a bookstore gift certificate.
   
   
10. Cooperate with other community organizations and school staff on reading activities for students. Rarely can one organization or individual "do it all." Contact other community organizations that have different expertise from your own. Ask for and offer help to improve and expand your reading activities. Contact other reading programs and school staff for guidance.
    
    
11. Find quality books for a wide age range that reflect the interests of children in your community. Offer these in the form of book lists or actual books to your local reading program. Offer to supplement the reading with related activities.
    
    

Simple Things Universities Can Do to Help

Students:

1. Ask your financial aid adviser if your university has officially signed on to the America Reads Challenge. President Clinton has taken a major step in fulfilling the America Reads Challenge and promoting his national service agenda by calling upon colleges to voluntarily invest significant portions of their Federal Work Study dollars toward tutoring children in reading.
   
   
2. Volunteer to read with or to a child at a local school. Visit your university's community service center or contact the volunteer coordinator to be matched with a child. If your campus does not have these resources, call the local elementary school and ask whether you can be matched with a child who needs a learning partner. Find out what opportunities are available through your local YMCA/YWCA, Girl Scout, Learn and Serve America, and AmeriCorps programs.
   
   
3. Get the local associations and organizations on your campus involved in literacy/mentoring community service projects. Contact organization presidents to discuss ways in which the organization may be able to contribute to existing literacy projects or to initiate a project. Encourage members of groups you belong to, to volunteer as reading tutors.
   
   
4. Use student newspapers, radio and television stations, campus electronic bulletin boards, and other on-line information sources to promote student involvement in the America Reads Challenge. Provide notices about school or local literacy projects to the person in charge of advertising; include in the notice a request for volunteers and a contact name and phone number for those who are interested.
   
   
5. Work with local precollege youth organizations such as Boys and Girls Clubs or the YMCA/YWCA. Talk with the heads of local precollege youth organizations to discover how students at your university can act as learning partners or mentors to their members. Post flyers on campus to inform students about the program and encourage them to participate.
   
   

Faculty

1. Use your expertise to develop training materials for reading tutors. The President of the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education and the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education are encouraging colleges of education to help prepare tutors to help children meet the President's America Reads Challenge. As you develop materials, request that colleagues in special education contribute strategies for training tutors of children with special needs.
   
   
2. Develop and conduct evaluations of local reading initiatives. Work with these initiatives to develop and conduct evaluations of their programs. Advise them on how they can use the evaluation findings to become more effective.
   
   
3. Share current research on reading and mentoring with organizers of local reading initiatives or conduct new research in this field. Many local literacy groups are eager for research that will support and help guide their work. Contact local reading programs and literacy groups to discover areas where research is needed.
   
   
4. Offer training on how to become an effective reading partner to interested students, community members, and families. Use your skills as an educator to help others develop effective mentoring skills and habits. Develop a training guide. Post information and sign-up sheets on campus and at your local library and school to inform the community and attract interest.
   
   
5. Include tutoring/mentoring skills and service learning opportunities in academic programs involving teacher preparation, social service, and human resources. Incorporate becoming a learning partner into your syllabus. Part-time student volunteer tutoring activities can provide enrichment to education, social services, psychology, and English classes. Match students in these programs with local schoolchildren to give your students one-on-one experience as mentors.
   
   

Administrators:

1. Assign and train Work-Study students as reading tutors. Increase the percentage of Work-Study slots that are reserved for reading tutoring. The Secretary of Education has waived the matching requirement for students serving as reading tutors to preschool and elementary schoolchildren. This 100 percent federal funding of Federal Work- Study reading tutors facilitates the participation of postsecondary institutions in the America Reads Challenge. Contact the local school's reading specialist or a local community-based organization such as Boys and Girls Clubs, YMCAs/YWCAs, Girl Scouts, and AmeriCorps projects to help develop an effective training program for Work-Study students.
   
   
2. Include reading tutoring/mentoring as an option for students participating in community service projects. Encourage your campus community service center or volunteer coordinator to develop a partnership with the local school so students can serve as learning partners or tutors to schoolchildren.
   
   
3. Provide space for local reading programs. Open classrooms or lecture halls to literacy programs on weekends and other times when they are not in use. Encourage students to volunteer as assistants
   
   
4. Sponsor an on-campus summer reading program for elementary schoolchildren. Invite professors and qualified students to teach sessions. Contact the community library and local reading programs to encourage their participation.
   
   
5. Make campus computer resources available to local families and their children. Open campus computer clusters to the public during off-times. Offer free orientation sessions for people who have never used the Internet before. Provide a list of educational sites related to reading.
   
   

Continue on to part 5 of this article