It was the Doodle Bug and Noodle Bug Celebration at Renton Head Start and ECEAP (Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program) on Thursday, March 07, 2013! Students, parents and staff gathered in the gym to celebrate their accomplishment of reading a total of 24,000 minutes! Literacy is very important at Renton Head Start and ECEAP and to promote reading the children and parents have been keeping track of their minutes reading together at home. Their goal was to make Doodle Bug’s tail grow — and…
Literacy was the theme at the Olympic Hills Head Start parent meeting on February 11th. Parents were first trained by Karen from Page Ahead on the importance of reading to your children at home. She talked about asking open ended questions and engaging the children in dialogue. The training is similar to what our Volunteer Readers receive.
After the training Early Learning Volunteer Coordinator Danielle Holing and Volunteer Reader Holly Weese informed parents about the Volunteer Reader Program, shared stories and distributed books. Parents were…
Thank you Amazom.com for donating $5000 to the Volunteer Reader Program (VRP) to help us connect with parents and engage them in reading and telling stories with their young children! The donation is being used to purchase books for a few of our VRP sites: Sherwood Forest Head Start in Federal Way, Olympic Hills Head Start in North Seattle, and Renton Head Start. Books are going home with families as gifts to build home libraries and encourage more reading at…
More than half of all kindergartners in our state are entering school without the social, emotional, physical and cognitive skills they need to be successful. Research shows that those children who start behind often stay behind. We’re looking for friendly, dependable people to read with young children one-on-one (not group reading) at select preschools throughout King County.
To learn more about this opportunity, please visit our webpage. If you are able to commit to this opportunity reading one hour a week for…
AmeriCorps Member Ariana Meyrich-Blomquist brought to her year of service a background rich in writing skills and tutoring. She felt that she wanted to learn the management side of volunteering, and decided to dedicate a year to United Way’s Volunteer Reader Program as our Program Associate. She was surprised at how much it takes behind the scenes to run a program.
She set out to recruit community members at events and volunteer fairs. She made many connections and got the word out about our program.…
This was written by guest blogger, Volunteer Reader Program Intern, Andrea Alvarez.
We recently had the pleasure of attending a site appreciation at Petite Daycare & Preschool for outstanding Volunteer Reader Karla Thomas. She has been a marvelous and committed volunteer for the past 4 years!
The staff and children were excited…
This was written by guest blogger, Volunteer Reader Program Intern, Andrea Alvarez.
For the past two years, Volunteer Reader Khushbu Vyas has been commuting from Ballard every Monday and reading to the children at Little Eagles Child Development Center in downtown Seattle.
Today, we had the opportunity to meet and catch up with Khusbu. Her warm personality made our visit extra-special, and her face lit up as she sang the praises of the Little Eagles Center staff and its children. For her, volunteering has been…
Earlier this week, our Public Policy department decided to reach out to community members involved in our Volunteer Reader Program. Via e-mail, we asked volunteers to do more to help support early learning in our state.
Volunteers were asked to sign on to a letter thanking our King County Legislature for its outstanding bipartisan effort to support early learning in Washington. We were very excited when enthusiastic and highly positive responses came flying in. In all, a total of 35 Volunteer…
When Volunteer Reader Tammie Treibley enters the classroom, she loves hearing the children exclaim “Ms. Tammie is here!”
Tammie starts with the book “Waddle!,” and asks the kids, “Can you waddle like a penguin? Can you hop like a frog?” Tammie explains that the children “love to act out the actions with the book”. The book never fails to capture their attention.
Another crowd pleaser is “I Stink,” a story about a trash collector truck. Tammie highly recommends the Volunteer Reader experience for anyone who enjoys…
Volunteer Readers sometimes ask how to keep a child engaged if he or she is not interested or not paying attention. Volunteer Reader Jessica Cothran recently shared a strategy that has worked well for her. She brings the book “Chalk” alive by imitating the illustrations within it. The book doesn’t have words, but the children look at the pictures and soon realize what’s drawn with the chalk comes to life in the book.
Jessica and a child mimic the action in the book by…
