Lucas Sanchez likes books about dinosaurs. After a few leaps into a bean bag, he settled down with a brand new book on prehistoric monsters and began reading.
“Dinosaurs are sweet. Dinosaurs are grumpy. Dinosaurs are spiky. Dinosaurs are lumpy,” he read out loud.
He and scores of other first-graders were celebrating Reading is Fundamental (RIF), at the library of Kemper Elementary School in Cortez. The program promotes reading and literacy while nurturing a child's curiosity in books as well.
The program began in Washington D.C. in 1966 when teacher Margaret McNarma brought some used books to a group of students she was tutoring. Within 10 years, the program attracted attention from the U.S. Congress, and soon after became a nationally funded program. Since then RIF has donated more than 380 million books to kids.
The largest children's literacy non-profit in the Unites States, it has provided over 15 million books each year to schools around the nation, and the kids get to keep the books they choose.
The RIF program is partially funded by the federal government and partially by the school district, according to Kemper Media Specialist Wendy Daniel.
“It really just instills the love of books in the kids,” she said.
“We're able to order enough books to where every student at Kemper gets three books per school year,” said Daniel. “You have to distribute books at least one month apart, so we do it in November, January and February.”
The library looked more like a birthday party than your typical grade school library. Balloons floated in the air or dangled from shelves. Three large knee-high tables were buried in books of all shapes, colors and sizes. Some about dinosaurs, some about boys with magical powers, some about animals that could talk and have incredible adventures. Tiny little chairs lined the room.
“All of the schools in the district are involved, but not all are quite set up like this,” said Daniel. “We make it a celebration with balloons and give the kids a book mark. It's a big event, and the kids love it.”
Kemper Dean of Students Beth Benavidez agreed that it's important to the kids. “It's just a wonderful program,” said Benavidez. “ The kids get so excited to hold those books in their hands.”
“It has to be free choice,” said Daniel. “We have to allow a different variety of books set out for the kids. We take about 18 hours ordering books to make sure that we're picking ones that they would want, that they would enjoy reading.”
The children sat, quietly bug-eyed and squirming in their seats as Daniel explained to them what to do.
“So when it's your turn, come up and pick a book. Be sure to look around really, really good, because there are so many books to choose from,” she told the students, most of them about 7 years old. “You don't have to bring these back, these are yours to keep forever.”
The students rummaged through books, showing each other what they found, and for a few moments the room was a bustling flurry of excitement, much like a birthday party that the library resembled.
Daniel's favorite RIF experience is when a student of her's showed genuine excitement.
“This little 5-year-old hugged the book and said, ‘Mrs. Daniel, this is my first book ever.' I couldn't believe it. Here was this 5-year-old and it was the first book they had ever received, and it was because of this program.”
Benavidez said that Daniel has been making a celebration out of RIF for at least three years, and that the kids look forward to it. She also said that Daniel puts in significant extra work
“This is what makes it worth it,” said Daniel. “We spend a lot of time after hours that we don't get paid for to make this work, but it's worth it when you see a kid with a book that they just absolutely love, so it makes it worth every second of the extra effort.”
According to RIF, nearly two-thirds of low income families do not own any books.
Lucas Sanchez kept reading the book he selected. He said he likes it because of all the big dinosaurs in it.
“I like dinosaurs because they have sharp teeth and they're scary,” he said.
“All sorts of dinosaurs eating their lunch,” he read. “Gobble, gobble. Nibble, nibble. Munch, munch, munch.”
Reach Brandon Mathis at brandonm@cortezjournal.com