The Leaven

Reading Time

Reading is a critical part of each student’s afternoon at The Leaven. And while we see our students’ reading levels increase—sometimes by as many as four levels—reading time can have a tremendous, and sometimes unrealized impact on each child’s life.

Melanie is one such child. An energetic and rambunctious 2nd grader, Melanie is everywhere all the time. She came to The Leaven via her grandmother, who received sole custody of Melanie when Melanie’s mother was declared too unfit to care for her.

Reading time has always been a struggle for Melanie, who lacks the focus sometimes to sit down long enough to read. All our program staff, our volunteers—even a few older students in the program have taken time to sit down and read with Melanie. Though we’ve seen these efforts improve her reading levels, the impact of reading time on Melanie’s life extends far beyond the classroom.

Melanie and Joseph, one of our program staff, sat down during reading time recently, and shared a book—each alternating reading a page. And when it was Melanie’s turn to read the last page of the book, she refused to do so. The book was about a little chick who went from group of animals to group of animals looking for her mother. On the last page, as Joseph read it silently, the chick finally finds his mother.

“She doesn’t look for me,” Melanie said quietly. So Joseph and Melanie talked for a while about not having a mother like in the book.

The difficult truth is that many of our children lack sufficient love and care at home—whether it stems from estranged parents, or parents that just aren’t engaged in their child’s life at such a young and impressionable age when they so desperately need it.

But The Leaven is able to help fill this void in a child’s life, where a girl like Melanie is able to enter the doors of our program center nearly every day of the week and receive warmth from smiles and hugs, attention, love, and nurturing from numerous caring adults.

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