Reading Solutions- December 2020 | Children’s Reading Alliance

Reading Solution

Merry Reading to All!

As we brace for the disappointment of a socially distanced holiday season, remember that books make great companions. Let your favorite authors indulge your fantasies. Live vicariously through the adventures of characters you haven’t met yet. Renew friendships with old tomes. Revisit that required reading list from high school and discover the wisdom you slept through the first time. Of course, this is only possible if you know how to read and have had books in your life from an early age.

Children’s stories used to end with “they lived happily ever after.” Many of you have been making that promise come true for thousands of children in Dona Ana County one book, one child, one family at a time. More parents than ever make story time a cherished part of family routines. Together we have put thousands of books into the hands of children who have never owned a book. For many children, their happy-ever-after futures are more likely because reading is the cornerstone of educational achievements.

The current pandemic shows us how fragile that future can be. Interruptions in daily school attendance marginalize struggling readers and poor children the most. Keeping our kids reading while they are stuck at home will make the single biggest difference in how they maintain their skills during these next few months.

At Children’s Reading Alliance our phone is ringing. A dad calls desperate for strategies. Moms worry that their children are becoming tired of virtual school and losing the enthusiasm they had only recently developed for choosing books as entertainment.

Community outreach groups are coming to us for books they can add to the critical supplemental packages they deliver in the most impoverished neighborhoods.

Our undaunted volunteers are figuring out ways to offer their services using ZOOM as a substitute for hands-on mentoring. Community actors, writers, professors are remaking the old timey family style radio show format into a high-tech approach for teaching critical thinking/listening/reading skills using children’s literature.

Together we can make sure all stories begin with “Once upon a time our community made sure that every child kept reading and learning even when school was interrupted.”

With your help we can fight illiteracy and equip children and families with reading strategies that will last a lifetime. Your contribution, at whatever level you are able, will make a lasting difference.

Ways you can help:

$5 puts a book in a child’s hands.
$45 sends an age appropriate book to a young child once a month for a year.
$350 Creates a home library and teaches parents to be their child’s First Teacher.
$5,300 transforms hopelessness into strong educational outcomes for an entire under-served community.

Choose Children’s Reading Alliance as your charity when ordering from Amazon Smile.

Mail a check to Children’s Reading Alliance, 3880 Foothills Road, 88011

Use PayPal on our website: https://www.childrensreadingalliance.org/

All the Children’s Reading Alliance volunteers, staff and the thousands of children who will receive books this month wish you a safe and jolly season.

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