Audience Enthralls Volunteer Readers

Tone Correa takes his usual seat in front of 20 squirming first-graders, and they quickly fall silent when they hear the crackle of binding as he opens a book.

The 88-year-old resident of Orange pops a mint in his mouth to nurse his voice through the coming pages and begins his weekly reading ritual.

Correa, a volunteer for the literacy group Rolling Readers, said a hoarse voice is a small price for bringing books and imagination to nine classes at Palmyra Elementary School in Orange.

“I love it because of the children,” Correa said. “They say and do some of the darndest things. They are the ones who are really enticing.”

Correa and more than 130 volunteers have helped Rolling Readers, an organization that fosters literacy by reading to children, receive international recognition this month for its work in schools, day-care centers and Head Start programs around the county.

The International Reading Assn. will present the nonprofit group with the “Celebrate Literacy Award” at an Orange County Reading Assn. conference Jan. 18 at the Sheraton-Anaheim Hotel.

Rolling Readers, based in San Diego, recruits volunteers to read to children and hands out new, hardcover books to children three times a year. The books are donated by publishers.

The group, which also organizes readers in the San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco areas, often gives children their first books, said Anita Price, the group’s Orange County district coordinator.

“If children are read to, they are going to want to do it when they go to school and get really excited about learning to read,” said Price, who brought Rolling Readers to Orange County with two other volunteers about two years ago.

The organization originally focused on underprivileged children whose families didn’t have the money to buy books, said founder and executive director Robert Condon of Escondido.

“I wanted to read to kids who maybe didn’t get read to,” said Condon, who started reading at a San Diego Head Start program in 1991. “Reading aloud is the most important thing you can do to develop reading and comprehension skills in kids.”

Volunteers like Lynn Covey, a Westminster School District trustee, have broadened the program to include all children.

Covey started as a Rolling Reader with weekly visits to three classes at Fryberger Elementary in Westminster. She recently added four Eastwood Elementary classes to her schedule and has expanded the program to more than 70 readers at 16 of the district’s schools, including two middle schools.

“It’s not just a point of learning, but it’s also a point of fun or entertainment,” Covey said. “The kids don’t even realize it, but they’re still learning something.”