Barrios helps raise readers

By Keith Howard

Sitting in a child-size chair, Sen. Jarrett T. Barrios read the words on the page out loud. He held the book up so his audience could see the pictures. There were more than a dozen kids sitting at his feet. They all looked up, staring at the page and attentively listening to Whistle for Willie by Ezra Jack Keats.

Barrios spent Thursday morning reading to children at the Capuano Early Education Center as part of a program to promote early literary skills amongst middle- to low-income and second language English students.   

“I can’t imagine a more sound way to promote reading for children from disadvantaged backgrounds,” said Barrios.

Barrios’ visit to the preschool classroom was part of national program called Raising a Reader. The idea is to increase literacy skills in young children. The Capuano school implemented Raising a Reader in March. When Barrios reached the end, each student in Ms. Larissa Kenny’s pre-kindergarten class was given a red tote bag containing four children’s books, courtesy of the Raising a Reader program.

Every Thursday children takes home a book bag with a new selection of age-appropriate books and returns them the next Tuesday. Then the books are rotated to a new student, said Donna DiFillilppo, executive director of Raising a Reader. “Our goal is to flood kids with books from birth to age five,” said DiFillilppo.

“We try to give them high quality material.” The books are all culturally sensitive, free of pop-culture references and are carefully selected from a diverse list of children’s books, she said. The California-based organization, Raising a Reader, aims at providing books to kids in hopes of encouraging families to read together and get kids across the country excited about reading.

“They actually have a wide variety of books that really challenges them,.” said John Shea, the father of Vivian and Cole, two students at the Capuano Center. Raising a Reader reports a 33 percent increase in the percentage of parents overall who read to their children three or more time a week and a 59 percent increase amongst Spanish-speaking parents.

“This is where it starts,” said Principal Susan J. Collins. “We give the foundation and you see that in every classroom you walk in,” she said.

Comments

[Pre-Schooler's Mom]

My son attends the Capuano and we have enjoyed the books that come home each week. One week it appeared that a book was missing, so I informed the teacher so as not to be blamed for losing the book. Turns out the book was pulled from the reading list because it was "inappropriate". It was The Three Little Pigs!!!!!
Can someone tell me what is inappropriate about the three little pigs? I wanted to stay in Somerville to avoid the control freak parents in Suburbia, but it looks like they're here too.

[Old Gent]

Wikipedia on the Net has an interesting history of the tale. In England it has been renamed 'Three Little Puppies' as to not to offend England's Muslim population.
Do you know the original tale had the pigs boiling and eating the wolf. This could be the reason our city has pulled the book. We never bought the new one. We spent the money at the DPW.

[Somerspeak]

Did Senator Barrios have lunch with the kids too? Hope it wasn't Fluff!

[Pre-K]

This article is very troubling. First of all, how is this program funded? City/School funds or grant funds? It is purported to be geared toward 'middle to low-income students', and yet Barrios is reading to a Pre-K class at the Capuano School. This is the only location in the city offering Pre-K, which means that a large percentage of the families are certainly not middle or low income. The city is already spending millions in federal grant dollars to educate these 4-year-olds when there are kids in other schools who need the support so much more!
I won't even address the PC issue....it's like banging your head against the wall!

[Yorktown Street]

The Head Start program also gets books donated by Raising a Reader.

[Margaret]

Capuano attracts kids from all over the city and they serve an incredibly diverse population. It's in East Somerville, so there are a lot of lower income families in the immediate neighborhood.

Somerville spends almost as much per child as most of the top suburban school districts and they are spending tons of $$ to rebuild Lincoln Park. So, I'm not sure what your problem is with this program?