Thank you to the Arts Council of Greater New Haven and Julia Rosado for the article about how NHR was able to pivot to distance learning in March 2020 and welcome back students in-person this summer!
Read the article from the Arts Paper here.
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Staff members and volunteers strive to fulfill the mission of New Haven Reads by spreading the joy and power of reading every single day. The New Haven Reads Summer Lecture Series, which began last summer and continued this year, presents an opportunity for staff, volunteers, and attendees to consider this mission in a broader context of literacy access and equity.
In our first lecture, “Three Ways of Looking at the Free Library,” New York City based architects David Leven and Stella Betts discussed the history and function of the free library: its role as a civic building and its impact on the community, how it is environmentally situated and architecturally structured, as well as the books and various programs and gatherings that are held within it. The two discussed the evolution of libraries from sites utilized primarily by the elite for collegiate purposes to multifaceted resources for entire communities, a shift that Betts referred to as a “radical transformation.”
This summer’s second lecture featured Dr. Julie Washington, a Professor in the School of Education at the University of California – Irvine who studies the intersection of literacy, language variation, and poverty. Her presentation, “Using Culturally Relevant Reading Materials to Promote Interest in Reading Among Underserved Students,” focused mainly on how educators and tutors can help bridge the gap in reading achievement among African American, Hispanic, and Native American students by using texts that resonate with their own experiences and identities. Washington briefly explains the idea of “Mirrors and Windows”: the incorporation of culturally relevant reading materials that students can identify with, but also allows them to “transport themselves into different worlds.”
Washington emphasizes the importance of getting to know your students, demonstrating respect for differences, and using diverse teaching resources, while also noting a scarcity of diversity in existing children’s literary characters. She strongly recommends “Maya’s Book Nook” as a resource to search for culturally relevant reading materials.
We at New Haven Reads hope that the 2021 Lecture Series serves as an opportunity for all of us to learn more about the accessibility of free libraries, books, and other related programs, as well as the importance of incorporating culturally relevant reading
Bonding Through Books is a new partnership with Department of Children and Families (DCF) Milford Area Office and New Haven Reads! Together, we are creating a library of children’s books in the DCF office for their clients. The office already had a small underutilized book collection that was in need of an update and lots of new books.
Before the makeover! DCF Milford AO Library
Today – the Bonding Through Books Book Bank
Randy, a social worker in the Milford office, contacted NHR about creating a book bank that would allow children and families to take books to help create home libraries, be given to children who were awaiting placement, and to be used to help parents and children bond during visits. Once he contacted our Book Bank Director Victoria, the idea took form. Victoria even suggested using the same bookshelves that we also use at our NHR Book Bank. Once the area was set up, New Haven Reads supplied 600 books to set up the new library!
Randy said of new book bank “One of the goals of visits here in the office is to maintain and grow the child and parent bond. What better way to do that than to look for and read books together?” Randy told us the other reason the book bank is so important is “when a child is removed from their home, they sometimes have to spend time at our office before being placed in foster care. This book bank will be a place to pick something out that is theirs and they can take with them.” Randy has witnessed families reading together, specifically a grandfather and his 6 month old grandson sharing a book on colors. “It proved why this book bank was so important. Watching them read together was amazing!”
Delivering books to a family
New Haven Reads is excited to be partnering with the DCF Milford Area Office for this initiative and will be sending over another book order to top up the shelves soon. We hope to be able to grow this initiative with other offices!
Name: Sasha Northrup
Hometown: New Haven, CT
College & Major: Yale University, Archaeology/Anthropology
Tutoring Site: Science Park (SPark)
Clubs: Leader of Book Club, helper for Math II and Chess Club
Favorite Childhood Book(s): The Magic Tree House Series
I have been volunteering at New Haven Reads for almost four years. What started out as a community service requirement, continued as I came back every school year and every summer because I was – and still am – enamored with the warmth of NHR’s educational community. Here I am, a summer intern at SPark and I am so happy and utterly thrilled!! I cannot think of a better way to spend my summer. Truly, thank you times a million to everyone at NHR and First Niagara Foundation in partnership with KeyBank for giving me this wonderful opportunity to grow as a person.
It has been a mere two weeks into the NHR summer session, but I have already learned a myriad of little lessons – the most important being, children know more than you think. Case in point: the book club at NHR SPark is reading Verify by Joelle Charbonneau, which deals with heavy topics that I am not used to teaching to younger kids. But the club is far more mature than I expected and hearing their opinions about Verify is enlightening. Tutoring kids in literacy skills is different than having honest discussions, so getting to hear their interpretations about Verify has given me a new perspective on how the students at NHR experience the books we make them read. The SPark Summer 2021 Book Club is clear evidence that New Haven Reads works! Aside from all of that, I have learned that each time your kid looks up at you from their workbook, inquiring about the time, simply smiling can make them smile, too. Monitoring the other tutors and their kids is guaranteed to make anyone’s day. Pick-up time, with family and friends waiting to hear all about the previous hour, is also guaranteed to make anyone’s day. Voice acting while reading aloud a book together can make any kid come out of their shell. Uno and Connect 4 are practically Olympic Sports – and, finally, Choice Time is highly anticipated.
The professional and life experiences I am receiving at NHR are invaluable. This summer at NHR I am learning more about my place in the world as a young adult. Because of my time at NHR, I understand the joy of learning, and I will never stop being grateful!
Name: Sebastian Ward
Hometown: New Haven, CT
College and Major: Yale University, Undecided
Tutor Site: Bristol Street
Clubs: Chess, Arts and Crafts (Helper), Nature and Science (Helper)
Favorite Childhood Book: The Percy Jackson Series
Working with students at New Haven Reads feels so surreal to me. It feels like I was just a student here; being shy around a new tutor or feeling a little embarrassed each time I struggled with a new page of Explode the Code. No longer the student and now being the teacher I used to look up to whenever I needed help feels strange, but in a good way. It is now my responsibility to give help to the students when they need it, foster a safe and encouraging learning environment, and most importantly, connect with the students I work with to make sure they learn and grow. Fulfilling these duties is always a heartwarming experience each time I am in a session- whether as a tutor, club leader, or even club helper.
This summer I have had so many good experiences with different students that I had trouble picking one to talk about. I had great conversations with students while making slime as a helper for the Arts and Crafts club. I also had so much fun playing a chess game on kahoot and getting a summary of the 9th and 10th Diary of a Wimpy Kid books so I could follow along while my student read the 11th one during reading time was an experience I definitely needed (I doubt I’ll ever reach an age where I am uninterested by the adventures of the Heffley family!). However, the most poignant experience I’ve had this summer was during an online tutoring session. Coming home after a day at camp where you run around and play to having to do a tutoring session for reading can seem not-too-appealing at first (I’ve been there). That was what was going on with my student, so I thought that starting the session with a fun activity would be beneficial. We opened with a word scramble, where we both competed to create as many words as we could within 1 minute with seven random letters. The student really enjoyed it, continued working diligently throughout the session, and even requested that we did it during choice time.
My summer at New Haven Reads so far has been an encouraging and fun learning environment for my students. My site staff and fellow interns have been extremely kind, genuine, and supportive to me throughout my time here. I have believed in the mission of New Haven Reads since I was a student there, and my time as an intern has only strengthened my resolve to assist in seeing it through.
A special thank you to First Niagara Foundation in partnership with KeyBank for giving me this amazing opportunity.
Every summer New Haven Reads has amazing fellows from different universities and colleges join our team. This year we are lucky to have three fellows that joined us from Harvard University, University of New Haven, and YALE College. Our fellows help with tutoring, summer clubs, and special projects. Help us welcome our 2021 fellows by learning about them below!
Josh is currently a rising sophomore at Harvard University originally from Branford, CT. At school, he is studying Physics and Mathematics with a language citation in Spanish. As a child, his favorite book was “The Phantom Tollbooth” by Norton Juster.
Melina is originally from West Haven, Connecticut. She is a sophomore at Yale College, where she studies comparative literature and psychology. Growing up, she loved reading the Magic Tree House series.
Faith is from West Haven, Connecticut and attending the University of New Haven. She is studying Criminal Justice with an emphasis in Investigative Services. As a child, her favorite books were The Magic Treehouse series. She is currently enjoying the memoir by the former First Lady, Michelle Obama, called Becoming.
Hello, my name is Abigail and I am the new Willow Street Assistant Site Director! It has been a busy time here at the Willow Street location. Setting up for the summer session after this building had been empty since March 2020 was a huge undertaking but Carol and I are finally reaching the end of that long to-do list. Our first week back was consumed with creating learning packets for the students, sorting books, scheduling tutoring sessions, and finally, organizing the space to facilitate learning and comply with COVID-safety protocols.
The building was painted, light bulbs were replaced, and everything was cleaned- this was much needed after the space was vacant for a whole year and a half!
Shown is one of the new air purifiers set to filter away germs and allergens.
This summer, we are offering both in-house and online tutoring for students. Some families have chosen to stay remote for tutoring and we look forward to seeing these students’ faces online, wherever they are logging in from. NHR has instituted a new program called myON to help students find digital books tailored to their interests with much more ease. We have also simplified the number of activities to complete during the hour-long session in order to reduce any technical difficulties previously experienced by students. This way they can focus on the best part of NHR – reading with their tutors!
New books carefully selected by Carol for students to choose from when arriving during the first days of summer session.
As for the families who have chosen in-person tutoring, we are thrilled to finally see the kids! It will be so nice to get a little closer to the warm, fun, and dynamic tutoring atmosphere. The building will be filled with the buzz of students reading, laughing with their tutors, and playing choice-time games. All this will be happening through masks as people remain 6 feet apart from one another and air filters hum in the background. Additionally, thorough cleaning will happen in between sessions.
We are excited to start our summer session and to see students at New Haven Reads once again – both in-person and online!
New Haven Reads joined The Amistad Committee and Connecticut 29th Colored Regiment C.V. Infantry who hosted the fourth annual Juneteenth Festival on Ashum Street. The festival hosted dancers, singers and vendors along with community organizations. Our Science Park Director Audra distributed diverse books to families while also informing them all about New Haven Reads programs.
To read more about the Juneteenth Festivals throughout New Haven click here
We are ecstatic to have our Community Book Bank at 45 Bristol St. open five days a week! We recently spoke to our Book Bank Director Victoria about what procedures and safety measures were put into opening the doors to visitors and more volunteers.
- What steps had to be taken to reopen 5 days a week?
There were lots of things to consider, Vaccination rates, COVID Infection rates, etc. before we could even think about reopening our doors. We had to establish special rules for all of our visitors and volunteers to ensure that everyone can be in the building safely. - What steps are being taken to keep staff and visitors safe?
We are still cleaning the high touch surfaces several times a day. We have a limited schedule of volunteers to keep the number of people in the building down. We have a limit on the numbers of books people can take, as well as a limit on the number of people allowed in the building. Everyone in the building is required to wear a mask (when we are open to the public), regardless of vaccination status and to follow social distancing rules.. We ask anyone who is feeling unwell to stay home. Hand sanitizer is available around the entire building so anyone can clean their hands whenever necessary.
New ventilation unit that was installed prior to opening.
- What did you miss most while the book bank was closed/open fewer days/hours?
I missed all the volunteers of course. As busy as it can get, I did miss just having people in the building. It is always nice to see people browsing for books. - What are you most excited about?
I am most excited about being able to distribute books once again. We were doing so at a very limited capacity while we were closed, but I love knowing that we can resume distributing hundreds of books to our community each day - Favorite book you like to recommend.
I don’t have a favorite book at the moment, but I would highly recommend The Cellar by Natasha Preston. It’s a young adult book, but I absolutely loved it. It’s a fast paced thriller that you won’t be able to put down! All the twists and turns completely blindside you.
We are SO excited to welcome you all back safely. We hope to see you at the book bank soon!
The New Haven Reads Creative Writing Club has been busy! The students from all four sites, including Saturday at Bristol St., in grades 3 and up have put together an amazing newsletter. They worked for three sessions to create the “New Haven Reads Chronicle.” The talented writers included stories about current events, breaking news, and even super heroes!
Check out the full New Haven Chronicle here.
