REadingADvantage, Inc.(READ), hosted a lovely Grandma’s Tea on March 21, 2015 in the community building at Buchanan Park in Pittsburg. We want to publicly thank the generous sponsors who were instrumental in contributing to this event: Assemblymember Jim Frazier, Dow CAP, CostCo, and Stewart Memorial CME Church. Our Grandma’s Tea was attended by over 50 local grandmothers and was centered around a workshop put on by READ entitled (Grand) “Parent Power! Learn the ABCs of Early Literacy.”
Over warm tea, cookies, candies, and pizza, our grandmothers learned about the many benefits of reading daily with their grandchildren. On the surface our workshop message to our grandmothers was simple: read to your grandchild every day for 20 minutes and we’ll give you several free books for your daily reading. Beneath our message lay a multitude of benefits that daily reading can bring to a grandchild, including vocabulary development, reading comprehension, language development, grandparent-child bonding, early identification of potential health issues, grandparent-child conversational techniques, and, even, help with a grandparent’s own difficulty in reading. We also suggested easy ways grandmothers could use books as a relationship-building tool even when not physically present in her grandchild’s life. We provided our Grandma’s Tea message in both English and Spanish.
At the conclusion of our Grandma’s Tea, Karen Tedford, Senior Staff Assistant to Assemblymember Jim Frazier, presented California Legislature Assembly Certificates of Recognition to Delbra Gibbs, Deborah Polk, and Lorraine Manly, our
Grandma’s Tea Planning Committee. “For your outstanding service and unwavering dedication to provide children of Contra Costa County with books that educate and entertain. On behalf of the 11th Assembly District of California, I commend and thank you for your inspired work and dedication to the joy of reading and lifelong learning.”
Incorporating in 2014, REadingADvantage, Inc. is a relatively new nonprofit in Contra Costa County. Over the last 18 months we have given our workshop to over 800 parents and have given out over 7,000 free children’s books and dictionaries.
For more information visit www.reading-advantage.org.
Submitted by Shirley Kalinowski, President of the Brentwood-based REadingAdvantage, Inc.
