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…

Volunteer Reader Susan Acala is a retired teacher and fluent Spanish speaker who has participated in the Volunteer Reader Program this past school year.  She has shared her love of reading with the children at Sherwood Forest Elementary Head Start in Federal Way. 

We recently added bilingual selections to the site’s book bin to enable volunteers to read in both English and Spanish. Susan also brought in a rebozo, which is a long woolen or linen scarf worn over the head and shoulders by women…

Volunteer Reader Carol Abrahamson has been reading to the children at the Renton Head Start at Spring Glen Elementary since the Volunteer Reader Program started in 2007. 

I had the pleasure of seeing Carol in action today and learned that she has set up a system that reinforces our program’s expectation of 1:1 reading.  Carol has a master list with all of the children’s names in the classroom—19 in all.  Each week, she marks off the children she has read to so the next week she…

As the coordinator of UWKC’s Volunteer Reader Program and the mom of an 8 year old, I know how important it is for children to be read to at an early age.  Read Ask Amy’s Article where she talks about a campaign called, “A Book on Every Bed” which a volunteer in our program had passed along to me.  ”A Book on Every Bed” is an appeal to spread the love of reading from parents to children. We also want to encourage…