Program Opens the Door to Literacy for Preschoolers and Families

Teachers must have nightmares that begin something like this:

You are standing at the front of a tiny, windowless classroom. It is warm and the air is stale. Before you are 22 plastic chairs, into which are crammed 33 people, roughly half of them under the age of 5. The rest are adults, and not all of them speak the same language. It is late afternoon, and this is the first of four classes you will teach today.

Marlene Moreno took in this scene at a federal nutrition center in East Los Angeles one recent Wednesday afternoon, smiled broadly and launched into her lesson with unbridled enthusiasm.

In two languages.

Moreno is an instructor with the nonprofit group Reading Is Fundamental of Southern California, which promotes literacy for preschool children and their families. The organization runs literacy programs and distributes books at more than 100 sites, most of them schools in low-income neighborhoods throughout the region.

It has also begun an innovative weekly program at a federal WIC center in East Los Angeles, the place where Moreno was teaching parents the fundamentals of creating a literate home. The program was partly funded this year by a $20,000 grant from the Los Angeles Times Family Fund of the McCormick Tribune Foundation, which raises money for nonprofit groups serving disadvantaged children and teenagers in Los Angeles and Ventura counties and the Inland Empire.

WIC, the federal Women, Infants and Children program, provides food and nutritional advice to low-income pregnant women and small children. Clients typically come into WIC offices monthly to pick up checks and receive nutritional advice -- a process that usually involves waiting to see a program officer.

That provided an opportunity for Reading Is Fundamental, which collaborated with several other organizations, including Cal State L.A., to create literacy programs for families that were killing time at the East Los Angeles WIC center.

Every Wednesday afternoon, student volunteers from Cal State L.A. read stories to children at the center, then hand out books and lead arts and crafts activities. Once a month, Moreno, 30, a student at Cal State L.A. and the mother of a 7-year-old, conducts family literacy classes for young parents.

Response to the programs has been powerful, said Carol Henault, executive director of Reading Is Fundamental of Southern California. Many families time their visits to the WIC center around the Wednesday reading hour, and some come just for the literacy program.

The message the program delivers is simple, Henault said: “Reading out loud to children is the single most important thing they can do to prepare them to be literate.” And literacy is the key to success in school and in life.

In her class for parents, Moreno began by asking if there was anyone who didn’t speak Spanish. One hand went up, and Moreno said she would conduct the class in Spanish and English.

“We are here today because we think it is very important for us parents to start reading to our children,” she said. After explaining the importance of reading, she asked if anyone had questions.

“I tried reading with my son, but he doesn’t seem interested somehow,” one young mother said as she grappled with a squirming toddler. Another complained that whenever her son got hold of a book, he tried to eat it.

Moreno gently reassured them. Children often have short attention spans, she said. Try reading for just a few minutes at a time at first, and build up. And let children explore books however they want -- within limits. Parents nodded in agreement.

She went on to talk about how to create a “literary home,” with a place set aside for books and reading. Integrate books and stories into as many aspects of your lives as possible, she urged the parents. Read cookbooks to children when you cook; tell stories in the car. Learn about your local library and take your children there regularly. And if you only speak and read Spanish, read to your children in Spanish. The important thing is to read.

At the end of the half-hour class, she handed each family a bag containing four books -- two in English and two in Spanish -- along with a book light, a puppet and information about library programs, including those that teach reading to adults. The parents filed past Moreno with their children as they left, taking the bags and thanking her.

“It taught me things I didn’t know, and gave me good ideas,” said Wendy Garcia, who had brought her children, 1-year-old Milton and 7-year-old April, to the class. “It’s good to hear someone else’s ideas about how to teach your kids.”

Henault said Reading Is Fundamental would like to expand the program to at least four other WIC centers. The only barrier, she said, is funding.

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Dec. 25