Class Notes : Students See Reading Is in the Stars

For many students, back-to-school week--which commences next week at most Valley campuses--is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, loose schedules, beach trips and sleeping in have come to an end. On the other, there are new clothes and shoes, new academic challenges and the chance to reconnect with friends.

For hundreds of young Valley students, there also is the excitement of resuming BookPALS--or Performing Artists for Literacy in Schools--the popular reading program sponsored by the Screen Actors Guild Foundation. The program, which will begin its sixth year, brings actors to elementary schools, where they read aloud to young audiences once a week.

“My kids love the BookPALS visits, and love our volunteer, [stage actor] Jason Bold,” said Carol Gramacy, a first-grade teacher at Telfair Elementary School in Pacoima. “The program shows students the value of reading: that books are interesting and fun. They learn that reading’s at the core of every subject, from history to science, even word problems in math.”

Every week last year, Bold arrived at Telfair loaded down with books he had checked out of the school library or with scrapbooks containing personal stories of his childhood. He also encouraged the students to pick words out of newspaper clippings he brought in.

“The program’s awesome,” said Bold, who has been involved with it for five years. “It feels great to make a difference, to have an impact on kids. When I see students I’ve read to and they remember me and say they’re now reading as well as I read, it’s wonderful.”

BookPALS was established in 1993, through the efforts of actress Barbara Bain. She won guild foundation approval for the reading program after she had read aloud to a group of elementary school students in Venice. Inspired by their reaction, she thought other students and actors would also benefit from the experience.

Two years after BookPALS was launched here and in New York, 100 performing artists from film, television and the stage had signed up to volunteer at local schools. Last year, the actors reached about 45,000 students in 18 cities, including beginning readers at 12 Valley schools.

“This is an excellent way to get kids involved with good books,” said Marcia Cholodenko, principal of Arminta Elementary School in North Hollywood. “There’s such an emphasis on literacy now. The people we get here enjoy working with the kids, and they come with a strong interest in getting kids to love books. I wish we had more programs like this.”

Last year, BookPALS launched “We the Children: Memories and Dreams,” a pilot writing program at San Fernando Middle School. The school’s sixth-graders--with the help of BookPAL volunteers--each wrote and illustrated a 10-page book about their family history, which stemmed from lengthy interviews with their parents and grandparents.

In June, the Screen Actors Guild Foundation hosted a Memories and Dreams party at its Los Angeles headquarters, where guild members presented each of the students with embossed, hard-bound versions of their books. A second copy of the bound editions went to their school library, to join the permanent collection.

“All of the participants in BookPALS want kids to succeed in life, and we know that they can do that through reading,” said BookPALS coordinator Ellen Nathan.

“Our volunteers have said that the We the Children program was one of the most rewarding of their lives.”

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Class Notes appears every Wednesday. Send news about schools to the Valley Edition, Los Angeles Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311. Or fax it to (818) 772-3338. Or e-mail them to diane.wedner@latimes.com