HEART program enhances reading, life skills

Scott Hoskins understands the research all too well – the inability to read by the third grade often leads to higher dropout rates, early pregnancies and drug abuse.

Hoskins, a Verizon Network manager, volunteers his time to coordinate the HEART – Help Encourage A Reader Today – program in Kootenai County.

“The more time spent reading one-on-one with an adult, the better reader a child will become,” says Hoskins.

One million American children between the ages of 12 and 17 can’t read or are at least three years behind in their grade level, and more than 20 percent of adults read at or below a fifth-grade level, according to the National Institute for Literacy.

Verizon and Coeur d’Alene School District officials began the HEART program at Hayden Meadows Elementary in 1999. The program now includes the Post Falls and Lakeland School Districts and serves children primarily in kindergarten through the third grade.

“The rules for this program are in crayon,” Hoskins says. “Each school district can adapt the program to itsparticular needs.”

HEART matches one adult with two children during the school year. The volunteer meets and reads with each child on the same day and at the same time each week for 30 minutes throughout the school year. There are training sessions to help volunteers be effective readers and mentors.

“Reading and just being there on a consistent schedule enhances reading and life skills in young children,” Hoskins says.

Hoskins stresses that HEART does not push curriculum. “We are there to just read to the children.”

The Center for the Study of Reading at the University of Illinois concluded that the single most important activity to promote literacy is to read out loud to children.

HEART is based on nationwide programs that have realized many improvements in children, such as strengthened literacy skills and relationship-building with adults and improved reading attitudes and school attendance.

The program has also proven to help HEART volunteers with improved work productivity and positive feelings about their participation in helping a child develop positive life skills.

First-grade Hayden Meadows Elementary School teacher Kathy Shamberg says the program “definitely expands vocabulary and comprehension skills.”

“The children just light up when their volunteer walks in the door,” Shamberg says. “They look forward to their special reading time each week.”

Over the last two years, the Verizon Reads Foundation has donated $10,000 to buy books for HEART participants to take home. Sometimes these books are the only ones the children have in their homes.

“The children receive free books, and this has become a great way to build a home library,” Shamberg says. “Parents have been very positive about the program.”

Verizon also has a “Check into Literacy” program where subscribers can make one-time monetary contributions toward literacy.

“One hundred percent of the money donated stays right here in our area,” Hoskins says.