Hollister
– Educators are asking the community to step forward and help
ensure the future of League of United Latin American Citizens’
Young Readers club, a program that has been helping local children
read for almost 10 years but suffered drastic funding cuts this
fall.
Hollister – Educators are asking the community to step forward and help ensure the future of League of United Latin American Citizens’ Young Readers club, a program that has been helping local children read for almost 10 years but suffered drastic funding cuts this fall.
“We’ve seen that this can really help students, but we are having trouble with our funding,” said Laura Munoz-Velazquez, who coordinates the program.
The local Young Readers program was started in 1998 as part of a bigger project designed by LULAC to help students who needed extra help with their reading in order to succeed in school.
“Mostly we work with kids who are at risk of being detained for a year instead of advancing to the next grade level,” Munoz-Velazquez said. “And we work with quite a few ELL (English language learner) students who have just transitioned into an English-speaking classroom.”
The local program, operated out of Ladd Lane School, works a little differently than the program practiced around the rest of the nation. Originally, Young Readers was supposed to be an eight-week summer program, involving students and parents together.
“In Hollister a lot of our parents are field workers, so that just didn’t work,” Munoz-Velazquez said.
Rather, the local program runs for six weeks at a time on Mondays and Wednesdays after school, several times a year. “Big brother/big sister” tutors from San Benito High School volunteer to spend time with students, reading to them, listening to them read, helping them with their homework and being buddies. Parents then log their reading at home and listen to their children read on tape.
“We’ve had parents say they can already see a difference just since we started this year,” Munoz-Velazquez said.
The older students who volunteer to tutor the first-, second- and third-graders participating in the program are able to use the experience toward required community service hours for graduation in addition to the satisfaction gained from helping out kids in need.
“When you watch a little kid finish a book and he’s so happy, you can say, ‘Wow, that’s partly because of me,'” said SBHS sophomore Jackie Whitehead.
A few of the students who were participants in 1998 have even come back to serve as tutors.
“I know this helped me a lot, so when my friend started tutoring I really wanted to come and help too,” said Dominique Quezada, an SBHS freshman. Her grandmother also volunteered to help teach that first class of students and her cousin also served as a tutor.
Unfortunately, said Munoz-Velazquez, the program’s funding – which comes primarily from the LULAC’s national education center and is channeled through the local chapter – was slashed this year and the program was almost discontinued. Verizon donated $4,000 – enough to operate the program for around 15 children instead of 30, but around 30 children are still participating. Munoz-Velazquez is asking the community to step forward to make sure the program is still available next year and in the future.
“We use the money for books, materials, T-shirts, to give the students a healthy snack, buy tapes to record them reading – all kinds of things,” she said. “Not having the funding has hurt us, but we want to be able to continue helping these students.”
Danielle Smith covers education for the Free Lance. Reach her at 637-5566, ext. 336 or [email protected].
