I was listening to the song “One Last Time” from the musical “Hamilton,” sort of for inspiration, but it just made me weepy, and that was already happening.
For several years, I’ve been a reading volunteer at the elementary school close to our church. People at local churches around Waco go to nearby schools and spend the lunchtime half hour listening to kids read. Half an hour is something of a squeeze when a kid has to walk to the cafeteria, get their lunch, go to the library, eat their lunch, and then read aloud.
I started reading with one girl when she was a first-grader, and I’ve been reading with her ever since. We did have that pandemic interruption, but this year, volunteers were able to get back into schools. There are books in the counselor’s office for us to use. For many of the volunteers, there are groups of two or three or four kids. That means that one kid can be reading while the others are eating, and they can take turns. For me, because one kid left the school after the first year we were reading together, and then, when kids were back at school, only one of my group was still with me. She’s a fifth grader now.
After I’d been back at school for a couple of weeks, I was heading to the cafeteria to meet her there, and another girl who was in line with her class as they were leaving the cafeteria, stopped me and said, “Hi. You were reading with me. Remember?”
I did remember. And I thought she must have been held back, because she’d been with the group I’d had at the beginning.
I checked with the guy who’s in charge of the program. I asked if anyone was reading with her, now, and he said not, so I said I’d like to start reading with her, too. We got that going, so that meant I read with the Fourth grader first, and then with the Fifth grader.
When I laid out several books, really easy books, for the younger girl, she was interested in Rosa Parks. The next day, I visited all the Waco libraries, and checked out all the easy Rosa Parks book. We read those for several weeks. She also liked Pete the Cat books, so I visited the libraries again, and picked up the easiest versions of those Pete books. Again, with thirty minutes of time, and some of it for eating, we might only get a few pages read. I said that I could keep the books for three weeks, then, I would need to renew them for three more weeks, but then I’d have to turn them back in to the library. We’d only get a few pages read each week. Eventually, the books would have to go back. But, the next time we were reading, I’d brought back the Pete book that we hadn’t finished. She asked me how did I still have the book, since I’d already renewed it once. And I said, “When I told the librarian how much you liked the book and were sad that we had to turn it in, she said that she would renew it one more time for you.”She asked me why the librarian did that, and I said I told the librarian that you really enjoyed the book! Librarians are happy when kids read books.That very last day of Reading Club, she read, with only a little bit of help, an entire Pete book.
The very first day that we started Book Club again, back in the fall, the Fifth Grader went with me into the room where the books are kept. She picked up a book about Michael Jordan. It was a picture book about him as a kid, wanting to play basketball like his older brothers. We read that one, easily in a couple of sessions. Then, there was another picture book about Pele. We read that one. And, she was interested in sports figures, but there weren’t any, beyond those two books, which were really for younger readers, anyway. So, I visited Barnes and Noble and found this series of books.
I bought a several of them, and she read the ones about Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. And it really did take almost the whole school year, since she was the only one reading each Wednesday at lunch time, and she had to eat lunch before she started reading.
As part of the Reading Club program, at the end of the year, the Reading Club kids get a book to take home to keep. The program has a number of books that are available for us to choose from, and we can give each child we read with a new book they can take home to keep. Or, we can purchase a book to give. On that last day, we were having our last lunch together, and I said that she could choose two books to take home to keep. I had purchased additional books (beyond those sports figures that she likes), and I put them out for her to choose. She immediately put her hands down on (and I am not making this up) Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Good choices, girl.
We are not supposed to take photographs of our kids. That’s a privacy issue, even if I promise to not show anyone a photo that I might take. But, ‘way back when they were second graders, I did actually take some photos, and here they are for you to see, also.
Matthew 19:14 (The Message Translation)