Motivating Kids to Read Focus of Yo-Yo Show

The yo-yo team members leaped out of a Los Angeles Public Library minivan and quickly started their routines.

To the sound of guitar surf music, the Golden Apple Corps boys twirled and swirled yo-yos around their heads and under their legs, demonstrating challenging tricks like the Sleeper, Around the World, the Hydrogen Bomb and Splitting the Atom.

More than 100 boys gathered Tuesday morning in the yard of Aggeler High School to watch the yo-yo demonstration. But books were just as important, for the event marked the start of the Los Angeles Public Library’s teen summer reading program at the school, which will allow the students to request books and reward them for reading achievement.

“Our goal is to bring the library to them,” said Leslie J. Chudnoff, young adult librarian at the Chatsworth Library. “It opens up worlds to them they might otherwise not be able to experience.”

Chudnoff takes books to the school every two weeks and had noticed students were interested in yo-yo books. She said students participating in the program receive pencils, key chains, book marks and other prizes.

Although the Aggeler High boys, ages 13 to 17, have access to small in-house libraries, most are unable to go to public libraries without staff supervision. The students, all wards of the court, attend classes during the day at the Los Angeles Unified School District opportunity school.

Most of the students sleep and receive counseling at Rancho San Antonio Boys Town of the West, a facility for troubled boys, next to the school. The boys have been placed at the home by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services or the Probation Department.

One 16-year-old, who has requested art and history books, said learning yo-yo tricks has also helped him with his reading habits.

If he gets bored reading, he said, he’ll play with his yo-yo awhile until he feels like reading again.

“It helps you read in a way because it gets you motivated,” he said. “You don’t learn a lot from TV. Reading a book is where it’s really at.” As many as 40% of Aggeler High students have special needs, including reading problems, Principal Robert Beck said. The recreational reading program helps to improve their test scores and the yo-yo tricks help raise their self-esteem.

“It has a way of spilling over to their math and science,” Beck said. “If they can be successful at that task, they can also do that homework assignment.”