Viviane – 2/23/10 – LINC

Today Kyla, Nora, and I attended one of the reading programs at the McDonald’s on 125th Street.  We took the C train up to 125th Street and St. Nicholas Ave.  Prior to arrival, I wasn’t sure what we’d be doing.  I knew it was going to be somewhere along the lines of reading to kids; but would a couple of picture books really take up two hour’s worth of time?  I hoped not.  That would’ve been a lot of reading.  Luckily, we did much more than read.

We started with singing “The Wheels on the Bus.”  Personally, that was a lot of fun for me.  It felt like I was back in pre-school.  At that very moment, I realized how long it has been since I sang those songs and how much fun it was for me.  After that, I was determined to make the experience as enjoyable for the kids as possible.  Once that was over, Nora, Kyla, and I shared a song we knew from our toddler days, “Great Big Moose.”  At first, it was a little awkward because they had never heard the song before, and weren’t singing, but by the second time around, they were singing and doing the little moose motions.

After the singing, we finally got our chance to read with the kids.  There were fifteen of them there and three of us; so each of us had a small circle of five kids.  We picked three books, and began reading.  Once I began reading, I noticed how excited the kids were about being read to.  They asked questions and were very engaged.  I never thought that reading a thin little picture book to a first grader could make a difference in his or her life.  But now I see that literacy skills develop early, so being read to at a young age exposes the many wonders of reading.  Plus, when a kid enjoys reading, they’ll have an easier time in school, and for me, that’s enough to make a difference.