Since the beginning of the year, volunteers have been bringing weekly stories classrooms at Richfield Springs Elementary School, reading books aloud to students as a newly established part of the local Stories Come Alive program.
Community volunteers visit a classroom from pre-K to third grade each Friday at the elementary school. The readings are recorded and posted to the Richfield Springs Community Center YouTube channel.
“Much success can be had when our community is highly literate,” said Becky Marzeski, president of the Community Literacy Alliance, a literacy group based in Richfield Springs. “It’s just increasing the level of literacy, and that begins with the excitement of reading and writing.”
Marzeski said Wednesday, Feb. 4 that Stories Come Alive is a collaboration between the Richfield Springs Public Library, Richfield Springs Central School, the Richfield Springs Community Center and the literacy alliance. The community center launched the program in 2017.
Stories Come Alive initially took place at the public library, where children were invited listen to a volunteer read a book aloud. Recordings of the readings were uploaded online. Marzeski said the library readings saw little attendance after the summer season.
When attendance continued to drop, Marzeski said, organizers reached out to Richfield Springs Central School.
“This is just a wider audience,” Marzeski said. “The school is excited to have us, and it has been going great.”
Marzeski, a member of the Richfield Springs Central School Board, said the literacy alliance was born of the school board in 2023, in an effort to put programming in place in the community to boost “literacy understanding and excitement among our families,” in not only Richfield Springs, but surrounding areas.
Community volunteers visit a class and read a story every Friday. Marzeski said volunteers ask teachers for topic requests when choosing what books to read.
Last week, Marzeski visted a kindergarten class that was learning about farms. She read the picture book “Jack’s Farm Adventure” by J.P. Anthony Williams, and donated some other books to the classroom focused on farming, in addition to fresh fruits and vegetables for the children to taste.
Richfield Springs runs a program called the Positivity Project, Marzeski said, which designates a specific word for each month. This month’s word is humility, she said, and teachers will teach about humility in the classroom throughout the month.
On Friday, Feb. 6, community volunteer Tiffany Campion read “The Big Cheese” by Jory John and Pete Oswald, themed around humility, to Rebecca VanBuren’s third grade class. Each reading takes about 20 to 30 minutes, Marzeski said, including a discussion of the story.
Marzeski said kindergarten kids were excited about the books she donated, many of whom sat down and looked through some of the pages after she finished her reading.
“That’s what it is all about, stories come alive, making reading a part of their lives,” Marzeski said. “They get excited about that. That’s what they are so excited about, it’s real, making reading real to their lives.”
Programming for Stories Come Alive is scheduled to continue at the public library in June, July and August, Marzeski said, when school is not in session. She added that she hopes the additional in-school programming and enhanced appreciation for reading will help improve the quality of life for everybody in the surrounding area.
Richfield Springs Elementary School Principal Rene Wilson said Thursday, Feb. 5 that she has found students do not have the same love of reading or “persistence” to sit and read.
Kids experience a “dopamine hit” constantly with social media, providing them with direct feedback every time they post or interact with a post, Wilson said. Attention spans seem to be shorter than they were in the past, and the school would like to foster an enthusiasm for reading throughout the building, she added.
Wilson said the Stories Come Alive program provides avenues for students to connect their learning to reading.
“This committee and having readers come in, we hope helps rewire or train kids brains to have that kind of sustained attention, hear higher order thinking, be able to talk to their peers and the adults reading to them and engage in more academic but also just functional communication,” Wilson said.