Courtesy of PaperPie
Volunteers at Grace Church Lake Highlands are moving outside the walls of their sanctuary near Lake Highlands Middle School and into the surrounding neighborhood to benefit children in the community. They’re sponsoring Richardson ISD’s “We Read Together” program at Northlake Elementary, which pairs adult mentors with students who need a boost to advance their literacy skills and catch up with their classmates.
The growing church, which formerly borrowed space at Youth Believing in Change, has found a permanent home in the former Bethany Lutheran Church at Walnut Hill and Ferndale. They invite members and other interested volunteers to join the effort to ensure each RISD student reads on grade level by third grade.
“Books and the written word hold an important key to learning,” says Elsa Gonzalez Casey, volunteer coordinator for GCLH. “If a child is at or exceeding grade level in reading comprehension, then all doors to knowledge are open. How can a child learn about math, science, geography, philosophy and other critical subjects if they cannot adequately read? Reading and learning often become frustrating and anxious experiences for poor readers. This often hurts a student’s self-esteem, and poor readers begin to pull away from learning — but if that student has additional support from volunteers to help them one-on-one, they may keep trying.”
Gonzalez Casey says she appreciates the vital work done by teachers in the classroom. We Read Together provides supplementary help to enable students to build on foundational lessons learned in class.
“We all know how hard teachers work for each of their students,” she stresses.
Gonzalez Casey first began as a reading mentor at Stults Road three years ago. She says RISD makes it easy to become a WRT champion.
“It’s really as simple as being an adult who is willing to patiently listen and encourage their young reader,” she explains, pointing to the WRT Cart with flash cards, worksheets, memory games and other resources which encourage fun interaction and weekly growth. “These tools and resources create sessions where students can learn, where students can interact with a positive, encouraging adult, one-on-one, and where students can have fun. These tools help volunteers host fun learning and mentoring sessions with their student.”
Once volunteers have passed an online background check, they choose their campus. GCLH sponsors the Northlake WRT program, but there are also volunteer opportunities at Hamilton Park Pacesetter Magnet, Audelia Creek, RISD Academy, Dover, Mark Twain, Northrich and Richland Elementary schools. WRT primarily focuses on students in K-2nd grade, since experts say reading proficiency by the end of third grade is a crucial marker in a child’s educational development. Failure to read proficiently is linked to higher rates of school dropout, decreased earning potential and other social ills.
Volunteers meet with their assigned student once a week for 30 minutes in a quiet space on campus from October through April.
After raising his own boys, church member Don Linnen recognizes the importance of encouraging confident young readers. He began volunteering last year, hoping to become a role model and mentor.
“I read to my boys when they were very young and cannot imagine a home without reading or something appropriate to read,” he says. “WRT fills an important gap that exists in too many homes today. It offers a little nudge to struggling readers and often some extra one-on-one time to those who may not get that attention at home. It also offers exposure to a lot of really good, age-appropriate books — both fiction and nonfiction.
“It’s always fun to see the lightbulb turn on — or maybe get a little brighter — when a very young reader gets better, gains confidence, discovers something new or digs for an answer they didn’t know was stuck in their brain. They smile. I smile. We both get rewarded.”
Linnen says there’s more to mentoring readers than helping them decode letters and pronounce words.
“Last year my young reader demonstrated an amazing ability to sound out words I thought were way beyond his age group. Initially I wondered why he was selected for more help with his reading. I thought I was reading with an all-star until his teacher asked me to focus on fiction books and ask him to explain the story we’d just read. It took me a while to realize that he and I needed to work on comprehension.”
RISD Director of Community Engagement Sonya Parker Goode says WRT volunteers make a big difference in the lives of the children they serve.
“Our volunteer ‘reading buddies’ help build students’ confidence, fluency and love for reading, but the impact goes beyond academics. The one-on-one attention fosters positive relationships, models the joy of reading and shows children that their community believes in their potential. Over time, students who participate often show more engagement and enthusiasm for learning in the classroom.”
“The We Read Together volunteers help our youngest learners see themselves as readers — and that foundation sets the stage for long-term academic success,” she continues. “It also gives students a consistent, caring adult who shows up for them, offering encouragement and exposure to someone from a different background.”
J.D. Wilhelm, discipleship pastor at GCLH, says church members are enthusiastic in their support of the program. GCLH is shaped by four core values — one of which includes being neighborhood-focused.
“Because Jesus lived and ministered in a particular place, we focus on the Lake Highlands neighborhood where our church is located. This includes identifying needs, sharing resources and partnering with those serving Lake Highlands. Grace Church Lake Highlands backs up to Northlake Elementary’s school zone, and the We Read Together program is a great opportunity for us to get involved in bringing about the flourishing of students in our schools through increased access to literacy support.”
Gonzalez Casey agrees. She grew up in a family with limited means, but relatives who read to her opened a world of possibilities.
“I know from experience that every child who reads can access a bigger world than that which they physically live in. A child who reads has almost no bounds to the world they can learn about. This knowledge often fuels bigger and better dreams and goals,” she says. “We didn’t have much, but we did have a mother who loved to read. My mother would remind us that it wasn’t important to have things as long as we had the real treasure — knowledge. She and my aunts were role models for expanding my world through books.
“Every Sunday after church, after our Sunday meal was eaten and the kitchen cleaned, my mom would go to her bedroom to rest and read. She would invite me and my siblings to join her. We had to behave — to be quiet and read. Reading opened a world I could not experience in person because of our poverty, but I could read about things and imagine.”
Grace Church’s cup runneth over with WRT success stories, and volunteers say it’s satisfying when they can see they’ve made a difference.
“I had a student that was very shy, and she spoke very softly when trying to read,” says Gonzalez Casey. “I could tell that she was significantly behind and had just a spotty mastery of kindergarten and first grade level words. As the weeks passed, her teacher, the school’s reading specialist, and I worked to improve this student’s reading and comprehension skills. Her confidence seemed to be growing.
“In April, she asked if we could end our session early. She wanted to return to the classroom. I asked why, and she told me she wanted to read a book to her classmates. The student, who normally barely said a peep to her classmates, read a book aloud to them.”
If you’re interested in becoming a We Read Together volunteer, you may contact Elsa Gonzalez Casey at 214-893-5958 or Sonya Parker Goode at sonya.parker@risd.org.
