Literacy rocks!

This past Monday, the Tyler Square Afterschool Program had a Literacy Program Kick-Off party with the generous help of a group of Pi Beta Phi women from the University of Puget Sound. This Literacy Program that is being led by this group of young women is called Champions Are Readers (CAR), and it is a month-long program that strives to get kids reading at least 15 minutes every night. Hopefully, those 15 minutes can be spent with a parent or sibling--the program is geared towards involving the whole family, not just one child. In the end, we hope the children participating learn to enjoy the activity of reading, we hope they become more competent readers, and we hope parents and children learn how to spend time together in the act of reading.

Thankfully, our kick-off party was a huge success. With the help of the Pi Beta Phi girls, the children ate pizza and received new books to read for their minimum 15-minute reading goal each night. The children also received free workbooks that provided fun activities to go along with their reading, a race track that simulates their reading patterns (and through which the children can keep track of how much they are reading), and guidance for the children's parents in terms of how the parents can be involved with their youngsters' nightly reading.

The following day at the Afterschool Program, I was encouraged to see some workbooks out with race tracks that recorded 30 and 45 minutes of reading for the prior night. The kids were excited about reading!

With a program like this, I can see that the kids are enabled to achieve success. The kids aren't just given a set of expectations (Hey you! Become literate!). Instead, the kids are given a ladder to climb on and multiple sets of hands that are reaching out to help during the journey towards achievement. In the end, the children aren't just literate, but they hopefully have learned to love the act of reading and are capable of using reading to enrich the rest of their life. The kids can't achieve this on their own; with the right type of resources and support, though, they will be able to climb to the very top.

Do you believe that they can make it to the top? There are a lot of things in their lives pushing them down and holding them back, putting a heavy weight on their shoulders even before they take their first step. They can't do it alone. Can you help?

Our kids are champions, and we believe they deserve all the support that they can get!