Summer is right around the corner for the elementary students of Central Texas! While this is a time of great excitement, it is also a time to plan and prepare. That is exactly what The Verb staff have been doing this last week.
The Verb Foundation spent time in the Lakeside community promoting the local library’s Bookmobile arrival, which comes into the trailer park every couple of weeks. However, few children were taking advantage of it. We considered that perhaps few actually knew what the Bookmobile and its benefits were comprised of, so we took action to amend that. We were able to successfully build bridges for more parents of the community by personally introducing them to the librarian. This helped promote the benefits of getting the children signed up for library cards. We are also working with the library to get translated versions of the library card permission slip so that Spanish dominant parents can better access the library’s resources.
Collaborating with the local library was not the only Reading Mission that we tackled. We continue to strive in building bridges between the school and the community! Our goal was to amplify the local school’s community read, and we did just that by finding out which book the 3rd-5th graders were reading so we could ensure that the parents of our Lego Club members also had a copy of the book. This is particularly beneficial by facilitating family discussions at home and allowing the parents to be involved with the literature education of their children.
While The Verb Foundation takes great joy in playing a part in the reading journey of these children, it took a lot of watering to make the seeds of reading interest grow.
“We hosted the book drives and worked to get books in front of them, but the kids were reluctant to take the books,” says The Verb Foundation’s President, Chris Rhoads. “Lego Club helped change that. After about a year and a half of building with legos, looking at the build booklets that simulate reading, and then getting success with building we saw that they were gaining new confidence. We were building competency loops! With this new confidence, we saw the children starting to take and be more excited about the books. Lego Club was the magical key to engage them more into reading, and that surprised us more than anybody. We had been trying to get the kids engaged with reading for over a decade, but it never gained traction. It was once they had a competency loop within Lego Club that the magic started to happen. “
The Verb Foundation will continue in hopes of building more bridges within the community and creating more competency loops for the children. It is only by these bridges and loops that we can ensure that resources are being provided to those that need them most to see success in breaking the poverty cycle.
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