"Jumpstart-ing" literacy
Joe Vasquez / The Collegian
Auckland Van Saun, 3, demonstrates how the little engine that could made it up a hill at Jumpstart’s Read for the Record event held at Starbucks last Thursday. |
By Morgan Steger
The Collegian
Fresno State Jumpstart tutors measure the success of the preschoolers they mentor in scrawly crayon signatures, excited four-year-old faces and books read.
The campus branch of Jumpstart, which employs about 75 students from Fresno State and 30 from Fresno City College, is dedicated to improving the literacy and social skills of local preschoolers in preparation for kindergarten.
The program leaped into the new semester last Thursday with its Read for the Record program, a nationwide effort to gather a record number of children and adults to read “The Little Engine That Could.”
Read for the Record also included a televised reading by Matt Lauer, which aired on the “Today” show.
At local Starbucks coffeeshops, Fresno State students read to children, handed out commemorative T-shirts and talked to parents about the importance of raising funds for literacy and early childhood education.
Making a connection with children is the most rewarding part of participating in Jumpstart, said Jennifer Lucas, a Fresno State team leader.
Just teaching children the anatomy of a book and reading to them can lay the groundwork for a love of literacy she said. “It gets them really excited about reading.”
For many of the 250 to 300 youngsters served by Fresno State’s program, Jumpstart is an important source of encouragement and personalized attention.
Jumpstart is partially funded by AmeriCorps and operates through Head Start preschool programs, as well as two campus-affiliated preschools, said Neil Dion, Fresno State site director.
The program’s goal is to ensure that every child in America has the opportunity to start school with the social and literacy skills needed to succeed, he said.
Lucas, a senior psychology major who helped read at Starbucks, said she spends four hours a day, two days a week working with a youngster that is assigned to her for the school year. Jumpstart tutors also help other children in the preschool class they mentor, but the focus is on one-on-one work.
Seeing her 4-year-old charge ready to enter kindergarten was rewarding, Lucas said. “I felt like I gave her an opportunity,” she said. “I thought that was just awesome.”
Sometimes just familiarizing a child with books is all it takes to spark an interest in learning.
David Gregorio had to teach the 4-year-old girl he tutored how to hold a book, but by the end of the year she could point out individual words and knew that the correct way to read was from left to right, he said.
The business marketing major said watching his student build confidence and learn to trust him were great benefits of working for Jumpstart.
Like many Jumpstart tutors, who are paid for about 20 hours of work a week through work-study, Melissa Thiessen is an early elementary education major.
Thiessen, a second-year Jumpstart tutor, said she was amazed last year by the progress her 5-year-old tyke made in the classroom. “When I walked in there he wouldn’t talk to anybody,” she said. “By the end of the year, I couldn’t get him away from his friends because he was so active and social.”
“This has really proved to me that I am in the right field,” she said.
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