Reading to Kids

There's an organization I belong to which I highly recommend to anyone who would like to volunteer for a great cause.  It's called Reading to Kids.  The concept is all in the name.  You go to schools and you read to children.  It's pretty much that simple.

What you do is you sign up at their website: http://www.readingtokids.org/Home/main.php.  You will choose what school you want to volunteer at, (I go to Politi,) and then you arrive for an orientation at 8 am on the second Saturday of the month.  After your orientation, you'll be matched with another more experienced volunteer, and you'll go into a room with a group of kids where you'll read part of a book to them.  The book is appropriate to their grade, and always has a theme that will match what all the kids are reading.  The kids then get a copy of the book, or a similar one, so they can finish it at home.

Also during the session, the kids get to do crafts, and do some other fun things.  This encourages a lot of them to come on a Saturday morning, which is helpful to the community as many of these events take place in communities where the reading levels are unfortunately low.

I'm missing May unfortunately as I'll be in Nebraska, but I'll be back in June, and hopefully I'll be at most of the rest of the events the remainder of the year.  I also donate Relic Worlds Pick Your Path books to them to give away.  I highly recommend anyone and everyone try this out.