News | Article from Fontana Herald Press

Students learn important lesson about the value of reading

By Bob Otto

Fontana (November 16, 2007) - Melinda Naysnerski had reached a decision: The household chores can wait. Her five children -- ages 8, 7, 5, 4 and 2 -- need her help. They must come first.

Naysnerski brought her children to the "Read To Kids!" program at Virginia Primrose Elementary School last Saturday. Read To Kids!, a United Way Hands On Inland Empire program, seeks to inspire and motivate children to read.

The half-day program -- held on the second Saturday of each month -- included a training session for parents entitled, "Parents Can Make Reading Fun." When Naysnerski finished the one-hour session, she had resolved to make reading time for her kids.

"I learned some things about how to get them to read," said Naysnerski. "And ways to show them it's fun. Some of my kids like to read, some don't. My eight-year-old doesn't like to read at all, but they must learn to read if they are going to succeed in life.

"As parents, we have to make time for reading. Now, the dishes can wait, my kids come first."

Virginia Primrose was chosen as the first school in the Fontana Unified School District to receive the program because it performed well in Academic Performance Index (API) scores this past year, said Principal Darlene Duquette. The API measures the academic performance and growth of schools on a variety of academic measures.

"I am so glad we were picked," said Duquette, adding that Primrose had the highest API growth in the district with 54 points.

Read to Kids! also allowed Duquette and six Primrose teachers to select the books that parents and volunteers read to the school's 69 Kindergarten through fifth grade students. Those 69 children were the school's first to experience the program -- a program where they sat back, relaxed and listened as adults read to them.

Read To Kids! is modeled after a similar program developed in Los Angeles, said Bryant Fairley, Hands On Inland Empire Resource Development manager. "It is so successful that we chose to emulate that model," he said. Funding for the program, currently $2,000 for Primrose, comes from a community partners grant through the Target Corporation, said Fairley.

Primrose becomes the first or "roll out" school, but not the last. "We want to grow to other elementary schools throughout the Inland Empire," said Fairley.

Forty-two volunteers signed up as Primrose readers. They underwent a short training session. They learned how to captivate children's interest while reading; how to ask thought-provoking questions; how to motivate children in arts and crafts activities. But foremost, they learned how to instill within children the joy of reading.

Mariaelena Garcia, a ninth grade math teacher in the Pomona School District, drove the half-hour from her Pomona home to Primrose to read to the children.

"This is something good to do, to instill a love for reading in children," said Garcia. "These are wonderful books they picked out. The children are interested in the stories. There's a lot of involvement."

And from the reaction of the kids, they enjoyed having adults read to them. Hands shot up in the air when volunteers asked questions about what they had just read. Kindergarteners mimicked flying through the skies in Garcia's class after she had read the English/Spanish book "Abuela" to them.

Garcia and her reading volunteer, Sarah Carter, Primrose's school nurse, followed the reading session with an arts and craft activity for the kids in which they drew and colored vivid scenes of what they had just read. The kids were active and animated, with not a bored look in the room.

Irene Pack hopes that such enjoyment for reading will carry over to the home.

As outreach consultant for the district and Primrose, Pack said that it's important for parents to make reading fun for their children. How? "With gestures, create fun noises so that kids see mom and dad having fun reading too," said Pack.

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