Are you looking for a good place to volunteer and help children develop a love for books and reading?\u00a0 Our neighbor to the north offers just the thing.\u00a0 For 15 years, volunteers like me have been reading to kindergarten and first and second grade students, one-on-one, in Richmond elementary schools—six of them at present count.\u00a0 Teachers select the students who participate.\u00a0 We readers meet with two students once a week for half-hour sessions right through the school year.\u00a0 Every two weeks, the students get a gift book of their choosing, the building blocks for personal libraries.<\/p>\n
The program is simplicity itself: a caring adult reads to a young person and they talk about what\u2019s read and what the reading suggests to them about the world.\u00a0 You don\u2019t have to be an expert to do it, just an enthusiastic book and reading person yourself.\u00a0 And don\u2019t think of it as just feel-good work—although you certainly will be doing something worth feeling good about.\u00a0 It\u2019s also great fun, and, for me, brought back memories of reading to my own daughters.\u00a0 I\u2019m glad Marilyn Nye, my one-time colleague at Cal State East Bay, who created the program, talked me into joining the cadre of readers.\u00a0 If you are already volunteering here in Emeryville\u2019s schools, more power to you.\u00a0 But if you have free time and would like to see more readers in the world, join us in the Read-Aloud Volunteer Program.<\/p>\n
For information about the program call 510-237-0735 or e-mailravp_org@sbcglobal.net<\/a>.\u00a0 You can also visit us on the web at\u00a0www.ravp.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n Bill Reuter<\/strong>, an Emeryviller since 1979, is Emeritus Professor of History at Cal State East Bay.<\/em><\/p>\n (To comment on this story, or to read the comments of others, click on the headline to go to the story page, then scroll to the bottom.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n