JFGNH
An hour a week is making a lifetime of difference for some New Haven school children and adults who read to them. You can become of those adults.
The adults — around 170 of them — volunteer to read for an hour to students in kindergarten through second grade in a New Haven public school through the Jewish Coalition for Literacy (JCL), which has been around for 15 years.
Paul Bass Photo
JCL’s Hedda Kopf, Ruth Sachs, Brenda Brenner, and Scott Zimmerman at WNHH FM.
Some of those volunteers — retired Quinnipiac University women’s studies and English professor Hedda Kopf, retired Yale Press writer Ruth Sachs, and People’s Banker Scott Zimmerman — described how they’ve connected with children for years and enriched their own lives through JCL on Tuesday’s episode of WNHH radio’s “Chai Haven” program. Sometimes you need to encourage a kid to dance or jump up and down for a moment, or to tell a story or draw picture, before he or she is ready to focus and dive into the world of the written word, they’ve learned. They’ve seen how reading can change kids’ lives.
JCL is holding an orientation session on Tuesday, Sept. 26, for adults who would like to joint he program, which is nondenomenational and non-sectarian. It takes place at the Woodbridge Club, 10 Millhaven Road, in Woodbridge beginning at 9:30 a.m. New Haven schools’s literacy supervisor Lynn Brantley and other experts will lead breakout sessions; no prior experience is required.
Program director Brenda Brenner spoke on the “Chai Haven” program about JCL’s mission, which grew out of a call by then-President Bill Clinton to have all fourth-graders reading at grade level. Click on the above audio file or on the Facebook Live video below to listen to (or watch) the full episode. JCL is run out of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven. Click here for more information on the group. Or contact Brenner at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).