Group Promotes Reading by Child-Care Providers

Education experts have long urged teachers and child-care workers to read aloud to young children long before reading age to spark a fascination with words and stories.

The image is compelling: children cross-legged on a carpet, surrounded by bookshelves, enraptured as their favorite teacher -- preferably in a rocking chair -- relates the tale of “The Velveteen Rabbit” or “Winnie-the-Pooh.”

The reality is far less inviting in many day-care centers in poor neighborhoods of Los Angeles County, where providers may have no money to buy books or toys.

Children already struggling with English may share a few dog-eared books or sit in front of a TV for hours on end.

So, three years ago, a nonprofit group called Connections for Children began a program designed to train providers in how to encourage literacy at child-care centers in low-income areas of Palms, Mar Vista, Venice and Culver City. It is supported with the help of a $15,000 grant from the Los Angeles Times Holiday Campaign, which raises money for nonprofit agencies in Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

“A lot of providers are low-income women themselves,” said Patti Oblath, development director with the Westside-based group. “We try to work with the providers and to work with what they have -- helping them take a look at their homes, or look at activities, to make them more enriching.”

Studies have shown that reading aloud to children each day is the single most important tool to promote successful reading as they grow older, staff members say.

With that goal in mind, the Child Care Literacy Project works each year with 30 providers and more than 200 children, from birth to age 5. Providers receive formal classroom training and are given books, musical instruments, paints, puppets and bookshelves. Members of the project staff visit their homes to offer coaching.

For example, a single mother on welfare began caring for children in her Palms home two years ago, aided by California’s welfare-to-work program and a Santa Monica College program that offers training in child care and general education.

The woman owned only a few children’s books, and she shared her young son’s toys with the other children in her care.

“She really had very little, because she was basically scraping by herself,” Oblath said.

This year, the woman got involved in the Literacy Project, which gave her more training, coaching and books. Today she is off welfare, supporting herself and her two sons and planning to seek further training so that her child-care center can be accredited.

She has a library in the corner of her home, and spends considerable time reading to the children.

“From what was just a few worn toys, she now has a really nice environment,” Oblath said.

That can make a significant difference for children at high risk for falling behind when they enter school.

Those in the Westside area targeted by the project probably will attend low-ranked schools where more than 75% of third-grade students test below the 50th percentile in reading. Most come from Spanish-speaking families, and more than a third have limited English-language skills.

Providers are encouraged to work with parents to promote reading. Three times a year, the project staff helps organize special reading events that parents are invited to attend. Each child can select a book to take home.

The staff also took children and their parents on a field trip to the Richard Riordan Public Library, where parents received training in how to read to their children.

Many providers already have a keen understanding of how children learn, Oblath said. “This kind of gives the providers a new lens to see what they’re doing.”

With the boost offered by books, supplies and training, she said, “They just really fly.”

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