American Latino Committee members who contributed $1,000 to Lynn public school literacy efforts made a commitment to help children read that far outweighs the organization’s financial generosity.
Reading, School Superintendent Dr. Catherine Latham said last week, “is probably the most important thing we teach in the Lynn schools.”
Those words spoken by a woman responsible for the education of 16,000 students bear contemplating. Reading is more important than all the 21st-century technology and innovation skills teachers can teach students because it is the foundation for all forms of learning.
Reading is also the most elemental form of education. Parents only need a book and time to pass on the gift of reading to children. Parents who can’t read English can learn to read the language even as they help their kids read.
Committee organizers reading is a gift that keeps on giving and that is why they showed up at a downtown ceremony last week with a big piece of cardboard made up to look like a check and handed it to First Book organizers and school officials.
First Book’s 10 year history in Lynn is based on the simple idea that children truly get an opportunity to read if they can call a book their own. Organizers plan to hand out thousands of books to kids in December, relying on the generosity of book distributors who are interested in putting their surplus book stock into students’ hands.
Even a short decade ago, reading meant picking up a book or a newspaper. Today, more often than not, it means clicking on the iPad or some other electronic device. Technology has exploded access to the written word and allowed readers to carry a library around in their back pocket.
But not every kid has access to an electronic device and libraries aren’t always an easy option for families, even though Lynn’s public library is constantly expanding its reading opportunities for children.
The chance to build up a small bedside library and to turn a few minutes of the evening after school into time spent with a book can open the boundless territory of imagination for a child. One book, one compelling character in a story, can send a child on a lifetime journey into literature and knowledge. Books are the ground writers and thinkers spring from and every child should be able to know the joys and take the journeys fostered by intellectual development.
At first glance, surplus books don’t stack up as an exciting handout for kids who spend more and more time buried in social media. But a book is tangible. It doesn’t need recharging. No one can break it and chances are slim anyone is going to steal it.
The American Latino Committee’s investment in Lynn literacy is a true tribute to Latham’s reminder that “it takes a whole city to raise our children.”
