By Joaquin Aguilar-Flores, KFCS
Klamath Early Childhood Development Center makes it a priority to host a family engagement activity for families each month.
KECDC has hosted creative events this year such as a Thanksgiving potluck and a holiday event which partners with Sunrise Rotary Club to bring gifts to children, along with a popular horse carriage ride.
For January, Start Making a Reader Today visited KECDC for the first time. Several volunteers took a moment, sat on the carpet and sat in a bunch to read to students.
“Many of the children we serve through SMART have been at ECI (Early Childhood Intervention) but the earlier the children have accessibility to books, hear the different intonation and exploration of words, reading with enthusiasm and energy, the better," SMART Reading area manager in Klamath Falls, Ore, Holly Stork, said. “I always learn something by watching somebody else, and hopefully, that is what took place today.”
SMART visits students in Klamath County on a weekly basis and serves 29 schools overall, including 1,511 students, stretching out to Gearhart and Bly.
Stork’s volunteer base is between 400 to 500 people. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, SMART was implemented through one-on-one reading but moved to classroom read-alouds.
Books such as, I Hear with My Ears, Gustavo the Ghost, It Came in the Mail, The Missing Cupcakes and a handful of Dr. Suess books, were read to the preschoolers.
KECDC Director, Teri DeGroot, helped bring another element to how students participated in the event with American Sign Language interpreters present. There was also a Spanish reading done by instructor Beatriz Ulloa.
DeGroot’s daughter, a Southern Oregon University student, helped with ASL interpretation.
“She came to practice her sign language with some of our students and it was a great experience," DeGroot said. “Beatriz is dual language, and we have a lot of books in Spanish, so some of our students got to benefit and hear books in Spanish and English."
Stork stressed the many ways children can benefit from SMART Reading. She shared the importance of diologic reading to encourage any parent or person, regardless of their reading ability, to interact with a child and explore the various ways a child can be read to.
"If the person who is reading the book does not have much confidence, they can work through the book based off telling a story from the pictures. Sometimes it goes 180 degrees, in another direction, but the parents added their own color to what the story was like.”
Each child at KECDC took a book home. Children are encouraged to build their own literacy library at home. According to Stork, there is a correlation with how many books a family has in their home to student success.
A child who has 25 or more books in their home is twice as likely to complete high school, Stork said. Through SMART Reading, students are given approximately 14 books in a school year.
“Children are read so many books but they are presented with window books and mirror books. A mirror book is what their life looks like. Are they around a family member who is a firefighter? A window book helps them explore their imagination capital, dreams. Maybe they want to be a teacher one day,” Stork said. “As long as we can celebrate diversity, inclusion, equity, the better the message is.”
Two days into KFCS Superintendent, Keith A. Brown, taking his new position with the school district during July of 2021, he met with Stork, who shared the impact SMART Reading has made in Klamath Falls.
“Mr. Brown has been an extraordinary partner of us. Two days since he was here, I explained the long-standing partnership SMART has with KFCS ... so we were not just one more thing in schools but part of the school.”
SMART Reading does not profess to teach children how to read and ensures the responsibility is left to the countless experienced educators in the community.
Ray Holliday, owner of Holliday Jewelry, along with the bank manager of Washington Federal, took part in a reading to a class using a smartboard at Mills Elementary School this past Thursday. The Portland Trail Blazers are also sponsors to SMART.
Additionally, every other Tuesday, SMART Reading visits Roosevelt Elementary School, having fourth graders read with kindergarteners.
"They have more friends in the halls who are older and they look up to them. We try to inspire children to reach for a book instead of a blue screen," Stork added. "It is not a presentation of reading a book; it is a conversation where the children are invited in to ask questions and learn more."
