Volunteer to Help Kids Read in Oregon

Having taught young people from 3^rd grade to high school level, I can honestly say that reading is the key to everything else a student will ever have to do. A child who says he or she wants to become a doctor, hasn't a prayer of achieving that goal if he cannot read well. A child who says he wants to drive a Mack truck will face all kinds of difficulties if he cannot read well, beginning with taking a driver's test in the first place. There are few occupations today that are not based on the assumption that the applicant can read. Poor readers and non-readers account for a large percentage of students who drop out of school before graduation.

For years, we have heard the warning cries of such books as, Why Johnny Can't Read, but many kids in our schools are still reading below grade level. Why haven't we responded more effectively to those warning cries? Isn't it time that each of us, individually, makes the decision to do more than shake our heads and bad-mouth the local schools for not doing a better job?

If you live in Oregon, you can help by picking up the phone and calling your local chapter of an organization called SMART. The letters stand for Start Making A Reader Today, and it is a nonprofit group that matches volunteers with children in Kindergarten through the 3^rd grade for one-on-one reading sessions once a week in an attempt to get young children off to a good start with reading; a start that could prevent them from later becoming school drop-outs or from struggling with school assignments they cannot read or understand for the rest of their school days. Yes, you can change your community, one kid at a time and here's how.

Contact SMART and ask them to send you a volunteer application form.

They will send you a form, along with information about the organization and its goals. Usually you will have a choice of schools, even one where your own children or grandchildren attend. You can set a time and day that is convenient for you, and SMART will provide any training you need.

On the application form, information that will allow them to do a background check will be required in order to make sure you have never been involved in crimes against children.

In just a few days, SMART will notify you of your acceptance and give you the details about your training session and where you will be doing your volunteer hour each week. (Some people enjoy volunteering for SMART so much that they sign up for several hours each week.)

The usual procedure is to set you up for two half hour sessions, one following the other, with two different children, who have been identified as needing extra help to develop reading skills. They read to you and you will offer as much help and encouragement as possible.

Every month, the SMART program gives each child in the program two books to keep for his own. This is a great gift for a child who may never have owned a book, or even seen one before he enrolled in school.

After the first couple of meetings with each child, you will be pleased to see that they really look forward to your sessions together, and even more pleased to see that you are looking forward to them, too. Sure, there are lots of other things you could be spending that hour each week on. You could go out to lunch with a friend, watch a program on TV, read a few more chapters in your latest "must read" novel, etc. The list is endless. But which of these other activities actually carries the potential of changing another person's life, permanently, for the better? Very few, if any, I would guess.

If you are still hesitating, why not give it a try for just the rest of this school year? It is only a few months until summer vacation and then, if you decide that SMART is not for you, don't ask for a new assignment for the next year. You can chalk it up to an interesting experience, and forget it. But it's my guess that you won't be able to forget it ever. Helping kids, one at a time, is the kind of experience that you don't really want to forget.

Remember, every hour that you spend as a SMART volunteer is an hour you are mentoring a child who may be at risk in his home due to a poor economic situation, or, even worse, an abusive environment. You, through SMART can change that child's life for the better.

* Sounds too good to be true? Unfortunately, it is, unless you live in the state of Oregon where the SMART program is flourishing and helping hundreds of students learn to read every year Oregon volunteers have spent 2.3 million hours reading with children. Currently 9,000 volunteers are working with 11,000 children across the state, and 1.4 million books have been distributed free to participants. Other states often inquirie about the successful program and several, including Iowa, have started similar programs of their own. Use the link below to inquire about kits that are available to start a SMART organization in your own community or state.