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Cookies for Bookworms
My AmeriCorps teammates and I, full-time reading tutors at Palmer Way Elementary School in National City, Calif., were doing our best to lead students through the horrors of English spelling and the difficult pleasure of reading books on oceans, trucks, sports teams, and fearless young heroes and heroines. We carefully tracked their progress, watching reading problems disappear as the children learned to handle the chameleon "ough," the trickster "tion," and the sphinx-Iike final "e," who silently got the vowel before him to speak its name. As faithful and fair soccer and tetherball players, talent show cheerers-on, and after-school chess referees, we were tightly woven into the children's days. All of us liked the kids, but we also knew that we only had 10 weeks at Palmer Way, which was located in a particularly rough neighborhood. Our tutoring and companionship was helping 500 students, but what else could we do for the school?
It must have been in the San Diego Public Library, while leafing through an old textbook, that I first really pondered an obvious principle of early education: a child's motivation and achievement depends most of all on their parents' influence. This was the premise of an after-school parent-child reading program that we had observed at another school, in a much more prosperous district, where my teammates and I had served as mentors for a week. Inspired by the textbook and the memory of the program, I suggested at our next team meeting that we start a similar program at Palmer Way. My teammates chewed the idea over and endorsed it. We presented it to the principal, an unflappable woman with sensible glasses and tied-back hair. Much discussion about details—especially the naming of the program—ensued. After she pointed out that offering food would be a major draw, we finally agreed on the rather un-hip name she proposed: "Cookies for Bookworms." The program was launched with a pilot session for first- and second-graders. We talked it up in our classrooms, made flyers for parents, and forewarned teachers and maintenance workers.
The day finally arrived. A little before the school day ended, we helped the janitor unfold the cafeteria tables. We brought over baskets of books in English and Spanish selected by the tireless, chatty librarian. We set up a station for food, which would be brought out after half an hour of reading (principal's orders). We waited. Parents began to arrive. More parents arrived, and a few grandparents. Fifteen minutes after the announced starting time, 80 people filled the room. Photos prove that it was not chaos. There they were, beaming 6- and 7-year-olds reading books they had chosen to patient parents. Even after the much-awaited cookie distribution, kids returned to the tables, cookies and Kool-Aid cups in hand, to finish a chapter or to find out what happened next.
That was a revealing, inspiring hour for me. I didn't know much about the community, only that it was known as the "violent crime capital" of San Diego County and that many children lived in threatening or destitute homes. I had taken part in a police ride-along for an eight-hour shift, experiencing a bleak world of tattooed gang members, abused pets, and cheaply built single-story office buildings with buzzing burglar alarms. Yet here was an altogether different side of the community: enthusiasm for education and real, visible caring. While I'm certain that some of the family members who attended regularly read with their children, I think that for most we created a comfortable setting for an activity that would have felt artificial at home. It went so well that the principal asked us to organize another Cookies for Bookworms afternoon. This time nearly half of the school's first- and second-graders brought parents or grandparents.
The school year finished, and we left California for our final project of the year in Washington State. Later, I received a letter from a Palmer Way teacher mentioning that Cookies for Bookworms was still going on. It felt great to know that my team had left a legacy and that families were continuing to connect through reading. It wasn't hard to do. Follow Team Blue 8's example and volunteer as a literacy tutor in your community. Maybe you can even connect a couple generations of cookie-loving bookworms. |
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