FILLMORE : Youngsters Trade TV for a Good Read

After the dinner dishes were done in their home on Cook Drive in Fillmore on Friday night, Monica Diaz, 14, and her sister, Christina, 7, performed what some parents and teachers would consider a minor miracle.

They didn’t turn on the TV.

Instead, Monica, a ninth-grader at Fillmore High School, relaxed in the living room with a copy of “Superfudge,” a novel for and about young people by Judy Blume, while Christina, in the second grade at San Cayetano Elementary School, read aloud to her mother from “Charlotte’s Web,” the children’s classic by E. B. White.

A few blocks away, on Blaine Avenue, Alicia Barnes, 11, curled up with a mystery, “The Search for Sarah,” by Thomas McKean; seated next to her, her brother, Patrick, 9, was so engrossed in “Oliver and the Amazing Spy,” by Michael McBrier, that he was barely able to tear himself away long enough to describe the plot (it’s about a boy’s adventures with Spy, his pet raccoon).

Like dozens of other youngsters in Fillmore, Monica, Christina, Alicia and Patrick had signed a “TV-Free Night Pledge,” promising not to watch the tube or play video games after 6 p.m. Friday. For at least an hour during the same evening, the children vowed to “read a book silently or . . . to my younger brother(s) or sister(s).”

According to spot checks conducted by Walter C. Weis, an assistant superintendent of the Fillmore Unified School District, the program undoubtedly will help improve some students’ reading skills, though most of the district’s 3,300 pupils did not take part. While the Fillmore schools’ reading scores are below the overall state average, the district does relatively well when compared to communities of similar socioeconomic background, Weis said.

Friday night, Weis called the homes of 20 students who had signed the pledge and, he reported, “all but one said they were keeping their promise.” On Saturday, at a district-sponsored Authors Faire honoring student writers, 160 students turned in signed statements from their parents verifying that the youngsters had not watched TV Friday evening.

Monica Diaz didn’t consider the loss of TV for one night to be a great sacrifice. “I might have read at least part of the time anyway,” she said. “The only program I watch regularly on Friday night is ‘The Cosby Show.’ If there’s a good movie, I might watch that too.”

Christina also seemed unconcerned about losing TV for an evening. “Mainly, I’ll miss ‘Full House’ and ‘Just the Ten of Us,’ ” she said.

Their parents, Luis and Jenny Diaz, decided to forgo TV to help the girls through the evening. Normally, Jenny Diaz said, she might watch “Dallas,” but that would be after the girls’ bedtime. Her husband said that if he watched the tube at all that night, it would be one of his tapes of World Cup soccer games.