United Way of Wyoming Valley puts emphasis on reading in fight against childhood poverty

WILKES-BARRE — Do you want to build a snowman?

Ask a room full of preschoolers and you’re likely to stir up a resounding “yes,” accompanied by some starting to sing their favorite lines from the popular “Frozen” ballad.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be a snowman, as the song also says.

OK, then, who wants to build a snow bear?

United Way of Wyoming Valley President and CEO Bill Jones looked around at the young faces, all enthusiastic, but a little bit confused by the reference.

“A snow BEAR!?”

Jones then proceeded to explain, reading to preschool readiness program students at the Wyoming Valley Catholic Youth Center from “How to Build a Snow Bear,” a picture book about two siblings sharing an adventurous wintry day.

When Jones was finished reading, another surprise lay in store: Amid many fist-bumps and high-fives, he and colleague Jennifer Deemer handed out a copies of the book for each of the youngsters to keep.

This collaboration with the CYC is one of many examples of how the United Way works with area schools and organizations to promote early childhood education, one of the group’s signature causes.

“It is really critical that children learn these early literacy skills before they start kindergarten,” said Deemer, who serves as the United Way’s vice president of community impact, including oversight of the organization’s Poverty to Possibility portfolio of school-based literacy programs.

“It improves their vocabulary, it improves their listening skills, and their ability to be ready for kindergarten,” she added.

“Kids love the program,” Deemer said. “It is a very innovative way of teaching children the fundamentals they need to be better prepared.”

Happy preschoolers headed home with books in hand is the positive side of the equation. On the other side is a sobering reality: Locally, nearly 40% of third grade students are not reading proficiently, Jones said.

Reading proficiency by the end of third grade is a critical milestone toward high school graduation and success later in life because it marks the transition from “learning to read” to “reading to learn,” he added.

Students who are not proficient in reading by fourth grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school and struggle throughout their lives, he continued. And, Jones said, the numbers closely parallel each other: National statistics show that the percentage of students who are not proficient in reading by that point tends to mirror a class’s dropout rate later on.

“We’re approaching this truly as a long-term strategy,” Jones said of the United Way’s efforts.

‘We need to start somewhere’

That strategy is inextricably linked with the United Way’s fight against childhood poverty, which contributes to low literacy rates and vice-versa.

While the United Way works with a number of school districts in Wyoming Valley, Jones said the agency has been most focused on those with the highest number and percentages of low income children: Wilkes-Barre Area, Wyoming Valley West, Greater Nanticoke Area and Hanover Area.

Attendance among the elementary schools in these four districts is a big part of the concern: The chronic absenteeism rate is 24.3%, meaning nearly one out of every four elementary school students is considered chronically absent, missing 18 days or more of school, Jones said.

“They are good partners and they are working hard to address these issues,” Jones said of the districts.

Beyond the classroom, low literacy rates and high dropout rates go on to create other problems in the lives of children and families, leading to greater reliance on human services later in life and cycles that continue for years.

“This is multi-generational,” Jones said, “and we need to start somewhere.”

It’s also a growing trend.

In his presentations to the community and to potential donors, Jones frequently cites U.S. Census statistics that underscore the problem: In the 2000 Census, the child poverty rate in the Wyoming Valley was 14.7%, he points out. By 2012, the rate had more than doubled, to 29.6%. Just before the COVID-19 pandemic began, the rate was 26%.

Jones sees several issues as contributing factors to rising childhood poverty here over the past 20 years. Key among them are stagnant wage rates, particularly for lower income families, but that is only the start.

“During that time period, we had a lot of migration of families from New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia into our area,” he said. “They were leaving those areas because of the high cost of housing, which is much more affordable here.”

Our region’s wages continue to be lower than in those metro areas, however and new arrivals began to find themselves pinched by that: Over time, the costs of housing, transportation, food, medical care and other essentials were rising, Jones noted, “but wage rates were not.”

To the mix was added one more factor: A growth in the number of single-parent households. An average of 40% of Luzerne County households with children are headed by one parent, Jones explained.

As costs rose and wages stagnated, families’ finances were stretched thin and more found themselves below the poverty line, particularly those with only a single parent. Those parents also found themselves with less time to spend reading with their children — and, indeed, many may have struggled with reading and school work themselves as youths.

“Poverty and and scarce resources play a role in people’s health and their educational attainment,” Jones said. “The challenge is that when families struggle, children will struggle. We all need to work together to help improve the odds of success for children.”

Jones has spent a lot of time thinking — and reading — about reading. During a recent interview, he frequently cited academic reports and news articles he has read on the subject over the years, following up with links in emails. One of them was “Early Warning: Why Reading by the End of Third Grade Matters,” a 2010 report by the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation, a national watchdog on child welfare issues.

Depending on your perspective, the report either makes for grim or hopeful reading, perhaps both. It lays out the case for early reading proficiency, including a look at the challenges which gave rise to the crisis and the ways in which it can be solved.

The report also graphically details the threats to American society if the problem continues unchecked.

“Every student who does not complete high school costs our society an estimated $260,000 in lost earnings, taxes and productivity,” the report states, adding that “high school dropouts are also more likely than those who graduate to be arrested or have a child while still a teenager, both of which incur financial and social costs.”

That is just the beginning.

“Behind these statistics, as one military expert notes, lies a ‘demographic surprise,’” the report continues. “The current pool of qualified high school graduates is neither large enough nor skilled enough to supply our nation’s workforce, higher education, leadership and national security needs.”

United Way programs

With the 2012 local childhood poverty statistics in mind — and warnings such as that in the Annie E. Casey report — the United Way began research and planning into how it could tackle the region’s growing childhood poverty epidemic. That effort got underway in 2014 as the Poverty to Possibilities model.

While the agency continues to support “safety net” services that benefit those who face an immediate threat to their well-being, the United Way of Wyoming Valley currently funds 25 programs provided by 16 agencies that specifically advance the goals of helping children.

Since 2014, the United Way has developed 11 signature initiatives that focus on brain development, school readiness, grade-level reading, school attendance, summer learning, health and hygiene supplies for students, and their newest initiative, eye glasses for students in need of vision correction.

Each has an impact on educational attainment, with a focus on underlying challenges that can keep young children, especially those in low-income families, from learning to read proficiently:

SCHOOL READINESS — Too many children are entering kindergarten already behind

• Annual Children’s Book Drive: Distributes more than 12,000 free children’s books to students in preK through 5th grade

• Annual Literacy Kit Initiative: Take-home kits for use by preschool children and their families to support kindergarten readiness

• Dolly Parton Imagination Library: Free book-by-mail program for Wyoming Valley children ages birth through five

• Reading Buddies: School-based reading program that pairs community volunteers with struggling readers in the early grades to promote improved reading proficiency.

SCHOOL ATTENDANCE — Too many young children are missing too many days of school

• Attendance Awareness Poster Contest: Family engagement initiative in elementary schools to address high rates of chronic absenteeism

• Loads of Love Initiative: School-based washer and dryer purchase program to provide students with access to laundry facilities and remove barriers to school attendance

• School-Based Community Navigator Initiative: School-based initiative to assess and address student, family, and school needs including crisis intervention, counseling, and home visitation

• See to Succeed: Mobile vision program to provide at-risk students with screenings, eye exams, and eyewear, if needed

• The Nurse’s Pantry: School-based initiative to reduce chronic absenteeism in young students by providing clothing, shoes, medical supplies and other essential items that address needs of an urgent nature

SUMMER LEARNING — Too many children are losing ground academically over the summer

• Summer Learning Workbook Initiative: Take-home workbooks for K-2 grade students to retain and strengthen their math and reading skills during the summer months

• Tag In for Summer Learning Reading Challenge: Summer Reading Challenge for elementary students combining parenting education and awareness on summer learning loss and a free book fair for elementary students.

Success, expansion

On top of her long career in music and acting, Dolly Parton has become an internet celebrity in recent years as more people came to learn of the charitable work the legendary singer has been quietly undertaking for decades.

The Dolly Parton Imagination Library launched in her native Tennessee in 1995, according to the program’s website, and went national five years later. The United Way of Wyoming Valley began participating seven years ago.

“We started our partnership with Dolly Parton’s foundation because reading to children is one of the best things you can do to help brain development,” Jones said, noting that “90% of our brains are developed by age 5.”

“For many families in poverty, books for their toddlers are a luxury and too often not a priority,” he added. “We just enrolled our 6,000th child in this program since September 2014. It is an investment in children that is worth every penny!”

Locally, the United Way launched its See to Succeed eye clinic in the Wilkes-Barre Area School District last fall to bring eye exams and the selection and fitting of glasses into district buildings for students who failed a school eye test and might need the clarity corrective lenses provide.

“We started our eye clinic that rotates between buildings in the WBA school district because 84% of children who did not pass the school’s vision screening test do not get the follow up care and glasses they need,” Jones said. “Our plan is to expand this program to the Hanover School District in early 2022.”

Firsthand experience

Deemer can appreciate the programs’ impact not just in her role with the United Way, but as a mom.

“When I started working at United Way in 2013, my daughter just turned two, and my son was just turning one. All of the early childhood development work that we were starting was resonating with me as we strived to create awareness around the importance of reading to children beginning at birth and introducing the Dolly Parton Imagination Library to Wyoming Valley as well as creating access to high quality early learning programs and child care,” she said.

“Seeing these programs in action through my own personal experience helped me connect and shape our work especially as a full-time working mother,” she said.

The COVID-19 outbreak only underscored the importance of such programs.

“When the pandemic hit, my youngest was in first grade and has suffered from learning loss like so many other early grade students in our community. The United Way has created innovative programs to respond to the needs of our community as a result of both poverty and pandemic,” Deemer said.

“While my family has not struggled to have access to needed resources as many do in our community, the need has only fueled my passion for ensuring that we reach as many children and families as we can because I can see firsthand how important it is to create access to early learning opportunities for young children so that they have the best chance to succeed in school and life,” she added.

‘It does engage the kids’

Karen Borton is one of the United Way’s Reading Buddies volunteers — as is her husband, Chris — and has participated in the program since 2019, when it was still operating in schools before the pandemic.

She and the other volunteers continue to work with young readers, albeit virtually due to COVID protocols. If there is a benefit to that, Borton said it allows for more personalized one-on-one encounters between volunteers and students — a level of attention that teachers typically don’t have the time and resources to provide, especially now.

“If the child can read I will have them read the story and then we will discuss it page by page. If that’s not possible, I’ll read the story and we’ll discuss words they may not understand,” Borton said. “These are very basic books, there are a lot of pictures. Then we will discuss the book. It does engage the kids. They love to give you feedback.”

For some of the students in the program, English is not their first language, Borton said. She observed an interesting trend among those students while working with children at the CYC last summer.

“We were in person outside. I would have a group of maybe six children. Some were very attentive, but I could tell they did not know any English. They had other children, friends, who would translate for them,” she said. “They have such a zest for learning. They want to learn.”

Borton has been volunteering with the United Way in different capacities for about 15 years, including as a board member, and was a co-chair of the committee that led the organization’s transition to the Poverty to Possibilities model. Husband Chris is a former board chair and campaign chair. She encourages other adults to consider volunteering for the program, which she has found very rewarding.

As a trained educator herself, she sees the need for and value of imparting reading skills to young children.

“A lot of these kids come from a socio-economic background that is impoverished. They don’t have books at home, they don’t have access to libraries. Their parents are not able to get them to a library,” she said.

“The parents have so many other issues that are overwhelming them. They just don’t have time,” Borton added. “And it’s a cycle, because they themselves were not taught. If we can get to these kids early and get them started, this is a way out of poverty for them. Education is a way out of poverty.”

How to help

Online: www.unitedwaywb.org

By mail: 100 North Pennsylvania Blvd., 2nd Floor, Wilkes-Barre, PA 18701

Mobile: Text the word SUPPORT to 26989