The Joy of Reading
by Dara Bowling

When fifth-grader Kayne Bowling brought home his permission slip to participate in EASTCONN’s Joy of Reading Interdistrict program during the 2004-2005 school year, he thought he was simply bringing home a piece of paper. He had no idea that what he was actually bringing home was a beginning.

Kayne, and other fifth-graders in the program, practiced reading with emotion. They walked to the Willimantic Public Library, paged through books, and tried to select titles that they thought preschoolers would enjoy. And then the big day came: they went to the Windham Early Childhood Program in Willimantic, partnered off with preschool students, and started reading.

At first, there wasn’t a lot of magic. “I didn’t know how to keep the kids interested,” Kayne remembered. “Mrs. (Donna) Drasch finally sat down with me and taught me about using different voices for different characters. She said it would be a good idea to move around while I was reading the story, and to ask the kids questions to keep them interested. She told me that if we were excited about the book, the kids would be excited about it, too. So the next time we went to the preschool, I listened to her suggestions and the little boy I was reading to held on to my leg when it was time for me to leave!”

In addition to learning how to read expressively and engagingly, Kayne learned an important lesson about the value of listening. “When we first went into the preschool, I had no idea what my partner was going to like,” he said. “But I learned to ask questions, and then really listen to the answers. If you listen to someone talk for long enough, they’ll tell you who they really are.” By the time the program ended, Kayne knew his preschool partner well enough to confidently select a title to give him as a parting gift, knowing that he would enjoy it.

However, this chapter in his life was far from closed. When Kayne, as a seventh-grader, reached the age of twelve and began to prepare for his Bar Mitzvah, he was given the open-ended assignment of doing a self-selected project. He was told that it could be community service, or concentration on some area of Jewish study. For Kayne, the choice was made instantly. “I knew I wanted to read to kids,” he said. “My mom called over to New Heights Child Care Program in Columbia, and within a couple weeks I was going in to read.”

Kayne now volunteers on Friday afternoons, reading to the kids at New Heights. The kids are always happy to see him walk through the door. “I remember everything I learned when I was in fifth grade,” he says when asked how he reads to them. “I do the voices, I try to bring the kids into the story and get them excited about it. Sometimes they want to go off and do other things; but a lot of the time, they want to be read to. And a couple times, when I’ve gotten stuck, I’ve gotten ahold of Mrs. Drasch and she’s given me some good suggestions that have worked really well.”

Kayne’s Bar Mitzvah is at the end of March; once it’s done, he will have fulfilled the requirements of the project. When asked if he will still volunteer at New Heights, his answer is instantaneous. “Of course!” he exclaims. “I’ll work there as long as they’ll have me.”

Since he was in elementary school, Kayne has been interested in paleontology. One of his biggest ambitions is to eventually become a paleontologist. However, the project that he’s done this year has got him thinking. “If, when I grow up, I can take my interest in dinosaurs and my interest in reading to kids and somehow put that together to make a difference for little kids…” he ponders as he shrugs a little, “then I think that would be a very, very good use of my time.”

The Joy of Reading Program

The Joy of Reading Program pairs fifth grade students* with preschool children*. The fifth graders prepare and read aloud to preschool children in order to strengthen the language and literacy skills of their preschool buddies, but also to improve their own reading fluency and comprehension skills and their self-esteem.

The concept for this program model is based on the following rationale:

• 85% of reading materials should be at a independent reading level. (Developmental Reading Assessment)
• 55% of the fifth grade students who are involved in this program are intervention readers with a first or second grade reading level.
• Lower level readers are capable of engaging in higher order thinking if they can understand the text. If it is too difficult for the student to decode text, then it is difficult to comprehend reading material.
• Feeling capable, competent, valued and appreciated for contributions are elements important for students’ self-esteem and contributes to their motivation to learn.
• The single most important activity for building skills required for successful reading is reading aloud to children. (Chomsky, 1972; Goldfield & Snow, 1984; Hiebert, Pearson, Taylor, 1998; Teale, 1984)

The program is designed to incorporate Head Start Outcomes, Connecticut Preschool Performance Standards and Benchmarks, Connecticut State Department of Education Language Arts Curriculum Framework Standards and Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT) reading objectives. The participating fifth graders are taught how to incorporate preschool cognitive standards into reading activities with their preschool partners. Workshops are provided for the fifth graders on the following topics: teambuilding, focusing on respect, responsibility, perspective and attitude; student book selection, reading aloud, and how to extend a story; and preschool goals and objectives, appropriate teaching strategies, and age appropriate behavioral expectations of preschoolers.

While learning how to be effective readers, the fifth graders work on intonation, pacing, comprehension, and prediction; some of the same skills they must master to do well on the CMTs. Students practice asking open-ended and text-to-self questions and cloze prompts to keep the preschoolers engaged before, during, and after reading.

The fifth grade students prepare for each visit by:

• selecting and practicing reading a picture book,
• completing a mini lesson plan which details the title, author, illustrator, main ideas, main characters, a list of unfamiliar words to reinforce vocabulary, and connecting questions,
• designing an extension activity which focuses on one of the preschool cognitive standards.

This program allows the fifth grade students to read materials that are at their own comfort level without the stigma that would normally be attached. The fifth grade students report that they recognize the importance of the life-long skills that they are acquiring. The program also appears to increase the fifth grade students’ comfort and fluency in reading as well as increase their desire to read more.

Joy of Reading Program Powerpoint (pdf)

For information contact:
Donna Drasch
ddrasch@eastconn.org
(860) 455-0707