Posts Tagged ‘reading’

Keriany has been a volunteer at Science Park, Willow and Bristol street for 7 months. She discovered and started this journey with New Haven Reads as a volunteer at our Science Park location in the fall of 2021. “As I continued to provide my services at New Haven Reads, I immediately knew that I wanted to continue helping children read,” says Keriany. As a result, she pursued an internship for the Spring 2022 semester. 

Following this transition into an internship, Keriany is now working with students at Willow and Bristol street as well. “Being at Willow has given me the opportunity to help English as Second Language learners. This is a special moment because I was a Dual Language Learner during my childhood,” she says. “Now I am able to help translate conversations between parents and directors on sites and think outside the box to create engaging sessions to practice comprehension or morphology. But the most fulfilling part is to help encourage our children to become future leaders,” Keriany explains.

When asked what keeps her coming back, she responded with, “A sense of purpose is what intrigues me to assist in serving the community at New Haven Reads. My soul is filled with joy to see children improve in their speech, while having fun. That is the reason why my heart’s desire is to do this every day.”

Her “all time favorite book as a child” was If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Numeroff. Currently her favorite book is Still Me by Jojo Moyes, which is a part of a trilogy that she finds fascinating. 

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Posted in Volunteer Spotlight

Mary Connors, New Haven Reads’ literacy specialist, can be found every Friday from 3 to 5 p.m. on Zoom with a room full of students, challenging them to think creatively, write beautifully, and share their finished written products with each other. For the second time, Mary is leading the Creative Writing Club. Even better, due to immense student interest, she’s leading two different sessions, one at Dixwell with older students and one at Willow Street with younger students.

Mary draws on a wealth of experience, having taught high school English and led an after-school Poetry Club before coming to New Haven Reads. Anyone who joined the Creative Writing Club for a day would not be surprised to learn about Mary’s background. It shows in her interactions with students, dedication to the process, and genuine interest in bringing out their best writing during every session.

She recently asked her younger students to write a two-person play. “They did a fabulous job. Being younger kids, I didn’t know they’d get rolling that quickly with their plays,” Mary said.

The students broke into groups of two after learning about the project, and they began with only 10 minutes left. Mary was surprised to discover that some kids had already completed their short skits by the end of the 10 minute period.

Most of all, though, she was just pleased that the students were enjoying themselves and improving their confidence in their writing in the Creative Writing Club. 

Mary shared, “I wanted to bring in social interaction, and really, I wanted them to truly grow as writers, which requires consistent practice with lots of writing. That’s the main difference between the Creative Writing Club this spring versus the one in the summer.” 

This summer was about giving the students an opportunity to express their feelings while they dealt with the unprecedented, compounding effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and racial tension. “During that time,” she said, “I wanted to give them a platform to express how they felt, as well as expose them to different genres.”

However, the spring Club is an opportunity to write. Mary summed it up nicely, saying, “The students write in the beginning, they write throughout, and they write in the end.”

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Posted in Blog, Home Page

Week in the life of the Outreach Director Natosha

Every week comes with certain tasks that must be done without fail. First thing I do in the morning is read and reply to my emails, usually 15-30 emails each day. Every Monday calls for approving intern timesheets and emailing them to their designated University program supervisor. Right now we have a total of 28 interns from various universities and high schools in New Haven, many working with us as tutors. Early in the week, I have a few weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly meetings scheduled, with the Education team, Communications team, Outreach team and the Executive Director. Collaboration between the departments is crucial to my work, to make sure the volunteer experience is smooth as they move through intake, training, tutoring and program evaluation.

A sizable part of my position is to bring on new volunteers. This requires 5 steps: recruitment, interviews, onboarding, training and assignments. This part of my job feels like juggling, because volunteers are all at different stages in the process. In one of my interviews this week a new volunteer asked “What is the best part about New Haven Reads?” I didn’t have to think before replying: “Getting to know someone who might be totally different from you, and helping each other to be better people.”

I am motivated by this kind of work, and have been involved with volunteers for years. My previous role was as a California State Parks Foundation Field Consultant, leading large scale volunteer habitat restoration projects in the California State Parks. I love to work to make the volunteer experience positive and rewarding. At New Haven Reads our volunteers are giving so much of themselves, and our priority is to make sure that they have all the tools they need to support our students and feel supported in return.

One way I do this is through training sessions. Taking input from volunteers and staff helps form topic-specific training sessions with experts. Our most recent training was about the effects of Covid-19 on students, led by Nakesha Alleyne, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. Another part of my position is building community partnerships. We do this through our robust internship program, organizations which send employees for service days, lecture series and community collaboration projects. Some examples of the groups we work with are Design for America and Teach for America, who did two important projects for us and helped provide invaluable materials and content for our programs. Some of the big projects I am working on this week include developing a Volunteer Ambassador Team, setting up our Distance Learning: Mission Possible Meetings, our second annual Lecture Series (coming this summer!), an annual volunteer survey, and collaborating on creative ways to thank our wonderful volunteers.

Many of my Thursdays mornings are spent in monthly staff meetings or Site Director meetings. This is the time when we all come together to discuss big picture plans and everyday best practices. Thursday’s are also busy with tutor training sessions in the evenings. By Friday evening I have wrapped up the week feeling accomplished and prepared for the following Monday.

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Posted in Blog, Home Page