Girls Inc. provides 300 free books

LYNN – Judging by the excitement and squeals of delight one might have thought Girls Inc. was handing out free ice cream, but instead it was books.”We have an enormous summer literacy program going on,” said Girls Inc. Literacy Coordinator Linda Hall.Reading is Fundamental and Macy’s provided 300 books, which Hall spent much of Wednesday morning handing out to the 169 girls in the summer program. Hall has spent the last three years refining the organization’s literacy program to the point where literacy permeates everything they do.On the wall in the foyer hangs a large tree with curling branches dotted with blue and green leaves. Hall said each leaf represents a child and a book that child has read.”It’s our ?Branching Out Reading’ tree,” she said.Yhaly Gondim Reyes has two leaves on the tree. Although she is only in elementary school, she said she understands the importance of reading.”It makes me get smarter, it’s interesting and I inspire myself when there are no pictures to see the story in my head,” she said.Summer reading programs used to be confined to public libraries but Hall said that just isn’t the case anymore.”I hate to always use this statistic but one out of six who are not reading at grade level by the fourth grade will not graduate high school,” she said. “I don’t want any of our little faces to be that statistic.”The summer program includes two mornings of “intentional literacy,” 15 minutes of silent reading for everyone, everyday and a lot of what Hall calls camouflage literacy. She said the staff has been trained to integrate books, writing and critical thinking into all sorts of hands on activities.”But it has to be fun,” she added quickly. “It can’t be like school ? there’s no dread here.”Along with theme days, scavenger hunts, cooking and science projects the kids are also read to every day, which volunteer Rachel Fose said is just as important as reading on one’s own.”I struggled to learn to read, so did my son but my mother used to read to me and I wanted to be able to do that too,” said Fose, a volunteer reader at Girls Inc. “If I hadn’t experienced someone reading to me and only knew the struggle I wouldn’t have been able to put forth the effort to learn.”Nine-year-old Jaziah Sutson said she likes it when Fose reads to them because it gives her more time to think about the story. She also likes it when Fose gets excited.”And if we don’t understand something she explains it,” added Nicole Garcia, 8.Hall said they are simply doing everything they can to get kids reading and it seems to be working.”We are really proud of all of this work and excited to be doing it,” she said.