Child care homes still need volunteer readers.

LEWISTON – Take an adult who has an hour a week to share, preschool children in a family child care home, a bag of quality children’s literature, and there will be some storytelling. Multiply the adult by 33, the child care home by 35 (with an average of five to eight children and a child care provider per home), and that storytelling looks like BookReach.

The BookReach program matches a volunteer reader with a child care home where stories are read aloud to preschool children from a bag of books. There are presently 35 such “matches” in the Twin Cities (two of the readers read at two sites), with six sites still in need of a reader.

BookReach began in the fall of 1997 as a project of the Lewiston Aspirations Partnership, funded through a grant from L.L. Bean. Now funded by the Auburn and Lewiston public libraries, it serves children in the Twin Cities who, because they are in day care for up to 10 children, may not be able to go to the library story times.

Each of the 85 book bags is numbered and has the same 10 books, which are chosen by Auburn and Lewiston children’s librarians. Readers usually visit once every one or two weeks, from September to August, although some do not go during the summer. Most read in the morning, although some go after naptime in the afternoon. There are substitutes for when a regular reader is not able to go.

When a book bag is signed out of either library and brought to the child care home, the reader, child care provider and children enjoy the stories together. Each reader is encouraged to bring his/her own style of fun to the experience, whether it is through fingerplays, nursery rhymes, songs or something unique to the reader.

The bag is left at the home to extend the exposure to the stories, until the reader brings a new bag with the next visit and returns the old bag to the library.

One goal of BookReach is to bring a regular reading program and the best in children’s literature to preschoolers in family child care homes. Another is to foster children’s enthusiasm for books so they will be ready to learn when they reach school, and the third is to increase familiarity of families and child care providers with a variety of quality children’s resources.

The volunteer readers are community members who are committed to children and their education. They are male and female, high school and college students, retired people and business people whose employers allow them to leave work to give to the community.

Robert Gardner of Auburn began reading in September of 2003. He said, “It’s one of the greatest hours in my week, to be able to connect with these kids who are 2, 3 and 4 years old. I get back so much more than I give.”

Claire Ward of Lewiston has been reading for four years. “The day that I read is the best day in my week, and I’m sure it’s making a difference in these children’s lives.”

The program’s coordinator, Kathleen Demers, recruits readers through giving presentations, setting up displays at city events and gatherings and getting out the word via newspaper, television, the libraries’ Web sites and “word of mouth.”

She orients them in effective ways to read to preschoolers, where the emphasis is fun, caring and sharing an enjoyable experience with each visit. Finally, she matches them up with child care homes awaiting a reader.

Anyone who is interested in literature, language and children, and who would like to try to make a lasting impact on a youngster’s educational development, may contact Demers at 784-0135, ext. 4.