Summer conference for volunteer Reading Pals held

The Early Learning Coalition of North Florida reports to Historic City News in St Augustine that early educators and volunteers who read and mentor local young children held their first summer reading conference.

The conference held at St. Augustine High School included two keynote speakers: Dr. Gi Gi David, a professor at University of North Florida and George Freeman, a behavior specialist with the St. Johns County School District.

“We wanted to provide something special for our volunteer Reading Pals to equip them with even more skills they can use throughout the year when reading with their students,” Cheryl Freeman, director of the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program of St Johns County, told reporters.

A host of break-out sessions were offered with topics which related to early literacy with the purpose to further educate and inspire the more than 50 attendees from St. Johns, Clay, and Putnam counties.

Some of the retired teachers, and even children’s authors, who are participating as volunteers in the programs, including Barbara Brenner, Erika Bauserman and Molly Grossholz, teamed up to share reading tips and activity ideas to use with different books. They also created a special break out session called “What Books should I Pick?” During the session, they discussed age appropriate books and shared many examples of creative extension activities to do along with reading the book.

Both organizations are looking for new volunteer Reading Pals to read once a week for about an hour to children in local child care centers, Head Start and preschool classrooms.

They will be hosting a new reader orientation on Wednesday, August 26, 2015 between 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. in the conference room of the St. Augustine Record building. To sign up for the Reading Pals orientation or for more information call Joan Whitson at 904-342-2267 or Cheryl Freeman at 904-547-3952.