Simple Things

Employers and the Media Can Do to Help

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Source

U.S Department of Education

Contents

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Simple Things Employers Can Do to Help

1. Encourage parents/employees to read and write with their children. Give children's books to employees who have worked overtime to thank them for time away from their families and to encourage them to read with their children. Copublish America Reads Challenge: READ*WRITE*NOW! materials for distribution to your employees' children or schools with whom you have a partnership arrangement.
   
   
2. Encourage your customers to read and write with their children. Set up a supervised reading area for children while they wait for their families to shop. Place children's books and children's magazines in lounge areas or waiting rooms. Place word games on placemats to encourage reading and writing.
   
   
3. Establish a lending library in the workplace so that employees can take books and other reading materials home to their children. Contact the local library to obtain suggested children's book lists. Ask employees to donate books and books on tape that their children have outgrown.
   
   
4. Set up high-quality, educational preschools and day care centers at or near work sites. Set up a program of educational, supervised activities for your employees' school- age children. Include a well-stocked collection of children's books and encourage child care providers to read to the children daily.
   
   
5. Advocate family-centered policies. Urge employees (parents and others) to use flex-time or give them extra time off to volunteer as tutors for children at local schools. Allow employees to use some paid time each month to serve as a learning partner to a child.
   
   
6. Develop a program to bring children to your work site for tutoring. Bringing children to the work site for tutoring gives them a safe place to go after school hours, helps improve their schoolwork, and makes mentoring and tutoring convenient for employees. Provide support for training reading tutors both in schools and in the workplace. Contact your local school district's special education department for assistance on how to address and support the training of tutors for students with special needs.
   
   
7. Establish and support bilingual tutoring and classroom programs. If your business already has a tutoring program, think about adding a bilingual component. If it does not, consider starting a bilingual program. Encourage bilingual employees to volunteer as reading tutors and purchase bilingual teaching and reading materials for them.
   
   
8. Establish a national program for employees to tutor, mentor, and allow children to shadow model employees. Encourage each affiliate, franchise, or company branch to get involved with its local schools by tutoring or mentoring students. Allow students to shadow workers for a day to understand how the skills they learn in school will someday be used in the workplace.
   
   
9. Develop public service announcements for newspapers, billboards, television, and radio that can help spread the message on the importance of reading. Help get the whole community involved in their local schools. Reach out to community members who do not have children. Everyone has a skill to offer from which children can benefit.
   
   
10. Support funding for leadership development and team-building among school district staff, school board members, community leaders, and families. Sponsor workshops to help the community set goals for its children and their schools. Bring in reading specialists and teachers to explain the most effective ways to increase literacy skills.
    
    
11. Help build coalitions to coordinate literacy efforts in the private sector. Contact your local newspapers, school district, and other businesses to create district or regional efforts to improve reading skills among children. Establish a relationship with local schools to determine where your help is needed most.
    
    
12. Provide books, videos, consultants, and other resources to schools. Contact your local school's administrators to determine which resources are most needed. Rebuild or refurbish school libraries so that they become the center of the school's literacy activities. Help to guarantee that schools have the most modern teaching materials, computers, books, and videos. Ask the school administrator about whether there is a need for your company to provide special materials/equipment for children with special needs.
    
    
13. Start a community reading program. One good way to begin is to set up an America Reads Challenge: READ*WRITE*NOW! program. Provide space in your office building for the program's operations. Provide transportation for children and tutors. Encourage your employees to volunteer as tutors.
    
    

Simple Things The Media Can Do to Help

Students:

1. Highlight successful reading programs. Cover stories about literacy events sponsored by schools, libraries, AmeriCorps projects, and communities and successful participants in them. Feature individual success stories and "unsung tutoring heroes." Provide information on how others can get involved.
   
   
2. Provide free newspapers for school use. Train teachers on how to use the newspaper in the classroom. Start a Vacation Donation program allowing subscribers on vacation to donate their unread issues to schools.
   
   
3. Start a Community Volunteer Alert Program. Publicize a weekly listing of volunteer programs in need of tutors. Provide contact names and numbers.
   
   
4. Help your community learn how to help children read better. Publicize tips such as those listed in this booklet and information about how to get involved with local reading programs. Promote literacy resources available in the community for families.
   
   
5. Keep families and the community informed about local student performance. Publicize school reading test scores and school efforts to reach high standards. Highlight a "student of the month" from an area school who has excelled academically in language arts or reading.
   
   
6. Sponsor literacy-focused events such as a Get a Library Card Day, Read-A-Thons, Book Drives, or Essay Contests. Contact your local library or literacy program for information about existing programs you can support and for help in organizing such events. Publicize a monthly calendar of these events and a short item about the outcome of each.
   
   
7. Support local literacy programs by donating advertising space. Produce a community public service announcement in support of reading. Publicize recommended reading lists for books that families can read with children of different ages.
   
   

Continue on to part 6 of this article