St. Vincent stresses importance of literacy with volunteer readers
Children as young as infants learn vocabulary if their parents read books aloud, said Mandy Brown, St. Vincent Center for Children and Families program director.
So for the second year, community leaders volunteered to read books to children at St. Vincent during Literacy Week. Last year, 13 people volunteered. This year, the number grew to 34. The purpose is to motivate kids and families to reap the benefits of reading, which is fundamental to being a lifelong learner.
'It also allows people in the community to come in and really see what we do here,' Brown said. 'We're really not baby-sitting.'
St. Vincent is a nonprofit organization providing early childhood education to kids between the ages of six weeks and 6 years old. There are typically about 160-175 kids in 13 classrooms.
Each morning during Literacy Week, guests read a book to a classroom of students, then autograph and leave the book there. Each child will also receive their own copy of the book to take home. The event is funded by Accuride Corp.
'Reading is one of the few activities that is free and it can take you anywhere,' said Cyndee Landrum, director of the Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library. 'You don't have to get on a plane. You don't have to get on a boat. You don't have to leave your bed. And you can take a trip to learn something new and you can get inspired.'
Landrum loves reading to kids because they engage and it's not just an activity, but it's an experience. On Tuesday, Landrum read 'Mind Your Manners, B.B. Wolf' by Judy Sierra.
'It takes place in the library, of course,' she said. 'Reading is really a critical skill and a foundation for pretty much everything. ... The earlier you get exposed and the more you do it, the better you are at it.'
Glen and Ann Muehlbauer read to their 2 year old daughter Lucy every day. So they didn't hesitate to say yes to reading to kids at St. Vincent. Both Muehlbauer's read 'Big Red Barn' by Margaret Wise Brown, which they frequently read to Lucy at home.
Muehlbauer thinks reading is a huge part of the learning process for younger kids.
'They love hearing your voice read the words, and the inflections in your voice,' he said. 'Hopefully they start to learn some words and associate pictures with words.'
Brown said kids would receive anywhere from 2-5 books this week.
'With our families, because we do serve a large population of families just starting to get on their feet, they don't have a lot of access to books in their home,' she said.
Corienne Gulley, a teacher in one of the 2 year old classrooms, said she believes a big role in her majoring in English is because her parents read to her as a young child.
'The (kids) are at the stage some of them are trying to actually read it to me,' she said. 'So that's pretty cool to see.'