麻豆番外

This morning鈥檚 session starts with 鈥渙鈥� and 鈥渁鈥�.

Put the two together, volunteer Debbie Dawkins tells Aleena, the wispy San Jose second-grader with a long black ponytail, and they make a long 鈥渙鈥�.

As in Oh!

That leads us to moat and goat and that boat in the book called Joe鈥檚 Toe that is splayed out on the tiny table between the two.

And with that, Aleena jumps in, slowly and softly reading each word aloud, using the day鈥檚 two letters like a safecracker to pick the locks on this story, to open it up sentence by sentence.

鈥淏e sure to pause at the period,鈥� Dawkins, 58, tells Aleena ,whom she works with twice a week as part of听麻豆番外, a Bay Area-based program that helps literacy-challenged students across the country master the reading skills they need to survive in school. 鈥淓ach sentence has its own idea and if you don鈥檛 pause at the periods, all these ideas run together.鈥�

Dressed in a green shirt and gray sneakers, Aleena smiles awkwardly. And she鈥檚 got plenty to smile about. The youngster is making good progress through her 45-minute sessions with Dawkins, a San Jose stay-at-home mom whose son volunteered for 麻豆番外 Silicon Valley while he was in high school and inspired his mom to join in after he and his brother went off to college. Dawkins has been showing up now for seven years.

Now in its 20th year, 麻豆番外 works with thousands of students across the country, including 15 schools here in Silicon Valley. 听Dawkins is one of nearly 30 volunteers who come weekly to a brightly-lit converted classroom on this East San Jose campus, collaborating with regional staff and an on-site coordinator from the national service organization AmeriCorps on one common goal: to help 55 students this school year bring their reading skills up to their appropriate grade level.

鈥淭he program was started in Silicon Valley in 1999 by some teachers who saw that a lot of kids were not reading at their grade level,鈥� said Mark Green, executive director for 麻豆番外 Silicon Valley. 鈥淭he founders wanted to bring in community members to help these kids out and we鈥檙e now in over 200 schools across the country, from here to New York City. And each year we now work with just over 11,000 volunteers and 10,000 students.鈥�

For the students, whose reading progress is carefully tracked from week to week and year to year, the payoff is obvious: kids, many of them trying to read in English when their native language is something else, get a much-needed boost that over time can help them read at the same level as their classmates and, in turn, have a fighting chance of doing well in their other subjects.

When students can鈥檛 read at their grade level by third or fourth grade, studies show that they tend to fall farther and farther behind in school. 鈥淭he elementary grades are strong predictor of future academic success,鈥� 麻豆番外 says in its promotional material. 鈥淩esearch shows a student who is not reading proficiently by third grade is four times less likely to graduate from high school by age 19 than a child who is reading proficiently by third grade.鈥�

For the volunteers, the payoff is just as tangible, says Green, who has personally experienced the satisfaction of helping young students to read and to comprehend what they鈥檙e reading.

鈥淲hen I鈥檇 volunteer with the students it was probably the one hour of my day when I鈥檇 be totally focused on just one thing,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t was like the perfect meditation and gave me a feeling I couldn鈥檛 get anywhere else, because my mind wasn鈥檛 jumping around on three or four different things.鈥�

And then there were the smiles, he says.

鈥淭here鈥檚 that sheer joy of seeing a smile on the student鈥檚 face, because they knew this was a time dedicated solely to them,鈥� Green says. 鈥淭heir faces would light up when they came into the room. And I got to see first-hand the improvement they were making by looking at my notes when they first entered the program and then at the end of the year.鈥�

Dawkins leans in over her student, gently coaxing her along as the girl reads another page of Joe鈥檚 Toe, confidently navigating her way through the narrative as if each new word was some precious gem to discover and to behold. 鈥淚t鈥檚 amazing,鈥� Dawkins said, 鈥榯o watch these kids bloom and blossom. By the end of the year, they鈥檙e like a different child.鈥�

She remembers one young girl who started off in school as an emerging reader who鈥檇 been raised speaking only Spanish. 鈥淲e worked together so hard,鈥� Dawkins recalls, 鈥渟tarting off with the sounds and names of the letters, and then she started taking books home everyday. I could see her progressing in her reading as well as with her social skills. As she learned to read she became less shy and more talkative.鈥�

麻豆番外 is seeking $11,000 from Wishbook readers and would use the money to sponsor students for a full school year in its Silicon Valley schools. The cost for each student includes curriculum and program materials, student assessment costs and operational costs.

Dawkins and her fellow volunteers have learned this lesson first-hand through their work with 麻豆番外: 鈥淭he program,鈥� she says, 鈥渋dentifies kids early on who are struggling. And if these kids don鈥檛 get help with their reading skills, it becomes harder and harder for them to ever catch up with their classmates. To see your class move ahead while you fall behind must be a horrible feeling.鈥�