Read Across Cobb: Inspiring Young Learners
by Jaina Patel and Isabella Diarra
This year for our IB project, we decided to go big and elevate our community service. Our goal was to make the project meaningful and inspiring, not just a mandatory task. It started out with just two people, and gradually we came up with a group of around thirty teens excited to spread the joy of learning to the youth. In this world we cannot stress how important it is to read! Little kids look up to us so much and it’s vital to use that influence to teach them to indulge in knowledge and find learning fun and exciting! So that is why we ultimately decided on using our project to read to the second graders at Smyrna Elementary and make it a day full of fun and excitement for them!
My love of reading truly wouldn’t have flourished if it weren’t for my family and teachers constantly reading to me. Providing fun activities and doing voices to make the characters in the books come alive. I thoroughly remember the excitement we had when our teacher announced that we were going to have a mystery reader come in and tell us a story. The classroom would erupt with cheers and the air filled with whispers as the class would giggle loudly and try to guess who that magical person agreeing to read the story was. It's experiences like these that are so important in the process of helping the youth flourish into knowledge hungry individuals with a love of reading and learning
Our project's main focus is to address the rising issue of reading decline in young children, while also inspiring them to read more. We want to encourage greater reading comprehension and enjoyment. We are more than proud to say that we have accomplished this. The young second- graders greatly enjoyed this activity! They listened while also engaging in the book, discussing the photos and text with the older readers, and some even took up the challenge of reading to us to show their comprehension.
Going to the school and reading to the kids was an amazing experience. We loved seeing the joy on their faces when they saw us enter the room. They all had an amazing time engaging and communicating with us and the other teens. If you told us at the beginning of our project that it was going to actually make a significant impact, we wouldn’t have believed it. But after actually carrying it out, we truly think that all parties learned and grew from the experience. The volunteers were so kind, and had an amazing time. Reading to the young kids really reminded us of a time when we were that age and enjoyed the simplistic and colorful books. I think the project really just provided a day to recenter and connect with the community. It’s truly so magical to see the younger and older kids connecting and enjoying themselves, despite the difference in age.
I honestly think we learned as much from the kids as they learned from us. We met the sweetest girl in one of the DLI (dual language immersion) classes and when we picked a multilingual book, she offered to read the parts in Spanish. It really was such a wonderful experience and I could tell she was really excited to be teaching us something. Being engaging with the kids and really valuing their input makes such a difference. All the kids we read to and spoke with had something they wanted to share with us. Whether it was some random fact, what they had for breakfast, or a whole sentence they learned in another language. Those are things to encourage. When they are ready to speak, listen. It's engaging in experiences like that where we can really make a difference. Letting them teach us and putting the things they have to share in a valuable position teaches them that their voice matters. It encourages them to keep sharing their thoughts, and to keep increasing their vocabulary and learning new things.
Reading has helped and encouraged us in more ways than one. Every time we read, we feel transported into another dimension, and suddenly, everything around us is silenced. Reading is an amazing way to fill free time with something productive, reduce stress levels, and teach us new lessons and morals. Reading has so many benefits, especially for new, curious minds. That's why we feel so honored to encourage a new generation to do the same. We're so excited to continue this legacy and see new teens contribute to this heartfelt service in future visits.
While our project's focus was helping the youth of the community learn and grow, I really feel like we learned so much in the process as well. Taking on a project this large really made us put our communication skills to work. We had multiple people within our primary group all in different ELA classes. There were so many times throughout the process where one of us forgot to communicate something. We learned from our mistakes and came back as stronger learners and communicators.
No matter the hardships through the process, we really were just so passionate about what we were doing that we overcame whatever challenges came our way. As a group we really all just recognize how important it is to be a good influence on the children within our community. Where we live is a village, and all these little kids will grow up to be the future leaders of our community. They will go on to do all sorts of great things, following their passions and making our community proud. Our goal is just to be good leaders and examples. Showing them that anything is possible and if we can do it, so can they. Something as simple as showing kindness and reading can go such a long way. It really is just so wonderful to see that our small project turned into something that really made a positive impact on our community!
Read Across Cobb 26 by CMS IB
