Reading program needs volunteers

Bill Duehren has read with students for 11 years. More readers are needed. photo by Torri Barco

Every week for 11 years, retired resident Bill Duehren has volunteered an hour to read with young children.

"If they can read, they can learn anything," Duehren said. "If they can't read, they can't learn anything."

Start Making A Reader Today (SMART), a book and reading program for children, opened in 1992 at Sisters Elementary School. At that time, Sisters was one of only eight schools in Oregon to meet the low-income ratio standards to qualify for the program.

Duehren joined the program when it opened and meets with two students for half an hour a week and reads to them.

"I think the kids have to start early with reading," Duehren said. "There isn't any question they become better readers."

The program is a valuable tool to help students who are falling behind in reading, said Debora Crippa, the SMART coordinator for Sisters. But right now, it needs more volunteers, she said.

Of the 37 students who have turned in permission slips since October to join SMART, only 17 have the needed two volunteers twice a week, Crippa said. Each volunteer reads to a student for 30 minutes. Five of the students have only one volunteer and 15 of the students have no volunteers, Crippa said.

"The kids want to have a volunteer," Crippa said. "If they don't have one, they come up to me and ask, 'When am I going to have a volunteer?' The students are primarily excited about SMART because it is fun. If something makes a child nervous about it in the beginning, by the end of the week, they are smiling and asking, 'Where is my reader?' If there is no reader, I have to disappoint them and that makes me feel terrible."

Teachers select students they feel need additional help in reading to leave during an hour of class to attend SMART, Crippa said. The purpose is to nurture a love for reading in the children which will naturally result in better reading skills, Crippa said.

SMART is a part of The Oregon Children's Foundation, which was established by former Oregon governor Neil Goldschmidt in 1991. The Central Oregon branch is primarily volunteer-driven and serves children from kindergarten through third grade in 23 schools, Crippa said.

Colorful picture books, adventure-filled chapter books, catchy rhyming books and classic animal books fill the small library in Sisters Elementary School's SMART office. A child and his/her volunteer work together to pick out the most desirable books. The volunteer's goal: to inspire the child to love to read.

"The volunteers are not responsible to teach the child to read, but to teach them a love for reading," Crippa said. "One of the goals of SMART is to make reading enjoyable and something to look forward to doing."

One of SMART's methods to achieve this goal is to give the children ownership over books. Volunteers select one book a month from the SMART library to give to each of their two children.

"They are developing ownership and pride in the book," Crippa said.

"The whole process enhances the value of the book. They write their own name tag and put it inside the book and a lot of these students are learning to write so it is a big deal to them."

Volunteers are needed immediately to work through May for an hour per week in any of the open slots falling between 11:45 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Crippa said volunteers are of all ages and must pass a criminal background check.

"We need people to come in who have a love for reading and a love to help children," Crippa said.