Citizen Journal: County libraries’ Reading Buddy Program needs volunteers

My wife comes home every Tuesday and gushes about two second-graders. She says they make her whole week seem brighter.

Due to the shortage of volunteers at the Spokane County Library District Reading Buddy Program, Lynn reads with the two boys until more volunteers can be found. Her two boys are friends and work together well. Good luck volunteering to take one of my wife’s two boys from her. She will not give up either boy. She has the most adoptive personality I know.

These are not always children who need help reading. Some of the kids just don’t seem to enjoy reading. My wife and other volunteers help them select and read materials that catch their imagination.

She tells me about her day at the school. Reading buddies only get an hour with their student. The boys choose from a stack of library books.

My wife and the two boys play a game after they have completed reading to each other.

These boys selected the book “Dog Man: Lord of the Fleas.” The book is classified as “graphic literature,” which is equivalent to comic books if you are an ignoramus like me. The book is illustrated like a comic book. I retired long ago, and I am critical of anyone who cuts across the corner of my yard or who opposes teaching cursive penmanship or anyone who uses comic books as instruction material.

I raised my objection to my wife in a quiet grumble. She was ready for my complaint.

She had made a list of a 100 difficult words found in various chapters of “Dog Man: Lord of the Fleas.”

Before reading the list to me, my wife said, “The boys are not familiar with every one of the words, but they usually figure out the meaning by the word use in context. If they still cannot guess the meaning, we talk about the word until they get a sense of the definition.”

Here is a list of 10 of the words from “Dog Man: Lord of the Fleas.” (I never used any of these words during my eight-year struggle to get through a four-year college.)

Annihilated, transfixed, consequences, agenda, democracy, hydraulic, redundant, transformed, recapitulation and reiteration.

I was defeated even further when I read chapters of “Dog Man.” In one chapter the father advises his young son on how to tell a joke. What kid doesn’t want to know how to tell a good joke? I was spellbound with the father’s instruction. I wrote down several of the father’s joke-telling tips in my diary. “Dog Man” also had several chapter lessons on acceptance of others, doing the right thing when it’s tough and helping people who need help.

If you have the will and the way to give an hour a week during the school year, join one of the Reading Buddy Programs at a nearby or faraway school. It is a commitment, and continuity with the same child every week is important.

Programs take place in reading rooms at various elementary schools in Spokane and Spokane County.

You are probably not doing anything more important for that one hour a week. And you get summers off.