By Doris and Len Coris Special to the Arizona Daily Star
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”— Dr. Seuss
“Ba-ba—…”
“Sound it out. What sound does ‘e’ make?”
“Beh—bell pepper! Wait. What’s a bell pepper?”
So begins another Reading Seed session, a combination of reading skills and exposure to words and concepts, all designed to help students become more proficient readers. In Tucson, the Reading Seed program, a children’s literacy program whose mission is “to help children learn to read so they can read to learn,” focuses on students in kindergarten through third grade who need additional assistance with their reading.
Reading Seed volunteer coaches provide this by meeting once a week for 30 minutes with each of two students. Throughout the school year, the coaches work to motivate students to read, to improve their reading skills and confidence, and to teach them good reading strategies.
Each week, the students read to us; we read to them; and sometimes we read together to improve their accuracy, fluency and comprehension. Both their teachers and Reading Seed coaches encourage them to read at home every day for at least fifteen minutes. Reading Seed also provides free books to the children, permitting them to start their own home library.
Although we work with the students’ teachers, we have the freedom to focus on each child’s interests and to select books accordingly. For example, we chose the book “Travel Team” by Mike Lupica, which proved to be an engaging and motivating read for a student who was actually part of a travel sports team. We have been able to pick from a variety of books recommended by the teacher, the school librarian and the Reading Seed staff, as well as our own children’s — and grandchildren’s — favorites .
Why are we Reading Seed coaches? We arrive at our school and find our students waiting for us, eager to tell us what they have been reading during the previous week and excited to continue reading their current book with us.
This focused relationship makes both the students and us feel very special. In fact, the children have even asked us how their friends can join this “reading club.” Studies show that one-on-one mentoring noticeably improves proficiency in reading, and we also see that coaching encourages independent reading and fosters a joy of reading.
Reading Seed is helping to fill the literacy gap for Tucson’s children and all parties involved are enjoying and benefiting from the process. The change is visible, as one student’s mother told us: “Now my daughter doesn’t go anywhere without a book.”
