Program sends community volunteers into classrooms to read to children
United Way of Western Connecticut (UWWC) is in its second year of its Ready, Set, Let’s Read! program, an early childhood education initiative that places volunteers in preschool classrooms serving disadvantaged children to read with them each week. Currently, UWWC has 22 community volunteers in 22 preschool classrooms at four preschools in greater Danbury. This program is serving approximately 440 preschoolers. UWWC is seeking additional volunteers to help support the needs in these schools.
There will be an informational session for new volunteers on February 25, 2015 at 10:00 a.m. at the Danbury Library, 170 Main Street, Danbury, in the Farioly Program room. This session is an opportunity to network with existing volunteer readers as well as to receive a tour of the children’s section of the library with Youth Librarian, Cynthia Lappala. If you are interested in participating and volunteering as a reader, please contact Casey Levene at casey.levene@uwwesternct.org.
“We are so pleased to provide our Ready, Set, Let's Read! program in our community again this year,” said Casey Levene, Director of Volunteer Services at UWWC. “With the help of a dedicated group of volunteers, we are able to continue support of preschools in the Danbury School Readiness Program including Head Start Northern Fairfield County, The Right Place Salvation Army, YMCA Children’s Center Bethel and Interfaith Early Learning Center. It is a wonderful reading program that seeks to foster the love of reading with children and their families.”
UWWC’s Ready, Set, Let’s Read! program supports preschools serving disadvantaged children in preparing them for kindergarten by placing volunteers in classrooms to read each week with the children. Research shows that children who are not reading at grade level by the end of third grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school. Danbury children on the free and reduced lunch program are performing more than 25 percentage points behind their peers on 3rd-Grade Reading CMTS; ELL students are performing 40 percentage points behind their peers. Volunteer readers in the classrooms will assist teachers in fostering a love of reading with these preschool children.
Photo: Immaculate High School students donated over 400 books to United Way of Western Connecticut’s Ready, Set, Let’s Read! program to be distributed to preschool children in greater Danbury.