Building literacy skills, friendships on Allied Drive

Miles from Bascom Hill, UW–Madison senior Lauren Chenevert’s Monday afternoon class takes place on a rug shared with 14 antsy third-graders. Her textbook: “Never Smile at a Monkey” by Steve Jenkins.

“’Never harass a hippopotamus’ — which I would never do,” she reads, adding her own commentary. “They’re huge!”

Chenevert’s voice, friendly but persistent, carries over the restless buzz. Some play with rubber bracelets; others whisper in a corner. One boy saunters in, his arms moving in a tight, cocky groove. He flops down on his stomach with a huff, facing away from Chenevert.

Within minutes, though, he sits tall in the circle, staring intently as Chenevert flips the pages. The buzz subsides as her voice rises and falls, describing spiny creatures on the ocean floor.

Since 2004, Allied Drive Literacy Time has nurtured a partnership between UW–Madison’s School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) and participants in the Safe Haven after-school program, run by Madison School and Community Recreation (MSCR) at the Allied Drive Learning Center. Once a month, SLIS students and other volunteers share a themed program of reading and collaboration with four classes of children in grades K–3.

For the UW–Madison students, the project gives them an opportunity to explore children’s librarianship and create literacy programming. For the kids at Safe Haven — more than 400 so far — it provides needed access to library and literacy services in a comfortable, encouraging environment.

The Allied Drive neighborhood has long had a reputation as one of the toughest areas in Madison. Tucked behind the intersection of Verona and Raymond roads, it is physically and economically isolated from opportunities available to many other city residents — including library services.

“There’s a lot of resources available, but it does have that stigma of being a high-crime, high-violence area,” says Leslie Thompson, Safe Haven supervisor for the Allied Learning Center. “Once people come out here, they might find out it isn’t necessarily as bad as it’s made out to be.”

Indeed, Safe Haven itself marks the neighborhood’s true identity. The after-school program emphasizes both fun and academic success, helping with homework and encouraging participants to practice skills on their own. While many participants experience less parental involvement than other Madison peers, they read at grade level.

“It drives us all crazy when people have this sad little picture of these ‘poor kids.’ They’re just kids!” says Thompson. “Maybe life is not as easy, but they still like to have fun and get excited.”

Today, volunteers have preselected nearly 40 books about animals. Spread out in colorful array, the books draw more interest than they might as narrow spines on a shelf. The dazzling gold cover of Tedd Arnold’s “Super Fly Guy” inspires hungry looks from student after student, eager to investigate.

Aided by the Children’s Cooperative Book Center (CCBC), volunteers learned quickly that not all books are equal. Many books read well on the page but not aloud; picture books may feature fewer words but complex vocabulary. Books with repetition and rhyme emphasize narrative while providing context for unfamiliar words. For this group, volunteers look for protagonists of color, mirroring likely readers.

The SLIS volunteers consider one-on-one reading their best innovation. Some young readers sit at a table, preferring to explore on their own. Two girls lean close to their adult partner, resting their heads on her shoulders.

“I had one really quiet, really shy second-grader. I thought he wasn’t following along,” recalls graduate student Cindy Fesemyer. “Halfway through the book, he said, ‘This is like me and my cousin! She won’t leave me alone!’ The rest of the book had so much emotion; he started using the punctuation and sentence structure. There was that magic moment when he put himself in the story.”

This partnership offers the young readers a rare opportunity to relate to information in a fun, low-pressure way. Participants can choose books with subjects and reading levels that interest them, not those pushed by a teacher or parent. Craft activities help younger children connect literacy to real life, whether they identify with the characters or the act of putting marker to paper.

“We model how to interact with books and how to think about reading,” says graduate student Angie Manderfeld, one of the program’s two student coordinators. “You want them to associate fun with reading and passion about literacy. It’s not supposed to be high pressure.”

The program began as a project of UW–Madison’s Water Library, gaining traction when a SLIS student took it on as an independent study. Allison G. Kaplan, faculty associate in SLIS, came aboard four and a half years ago.

As leader of the affiliated SLIS course Topics in Community Engagement (LIS 820), Kaplan incorporated the Allied Drive volunteer program into the SLIS curriculum. Now, SLIS offers the course each fall. Other campus libraries add their own contributions to Literacy Time each spring, while the course has grown to include additional projects.

“The genesis was originally to provide an opportunity for people interested in youth services to work with youth,” says Kaplan. “When it seemed to work, we opened it up to opportunities beyond Allied Drive. This is just an extension of the history of SLIS in community engagement, and our commitment to the Wisconsin Idea.”

For future librarians, increasingly responsible for a dizzying array of tasks and activities, working with members of a community is critical. Though all SLIS students must complete a field project before graduation, it typically takes place near the end of the student’s study, focusing on one particular track.

Allied Drive Literacy Time provides an early, fun opportunity for hands-on practice. Some participate to learn about school, public and children’s library work before diving in full-time. Others, preparing to serve a diverse population, welcome the chance to cross racial and economic lines and gain experience in a less-familiar environment.

“The internal dialogue about librarianship is changing,” says Manderfeld. “One of the best things about library school is learning about forming partnerships, being creative and making things happen. We don’t come in as the Great White Hope; we say, ‘This is what we have to offer, and what you have to offer; how can we work together?’”

On days when the SLIS volunteers visit, the Madison Public Library’s Readmobile sets up a mini-library, where Safe Haven participants can select and check out books on their own. Twice a year, the kids receive books to keep — more than 500 since 2008 — thanks to sponsors such as Friends of the UW–Madison Library, Madison Gas & Electric and Target.

But the volunteers model more than just a love of reading. By literally getting down to the students’ level, on rugs and tiny chairs, they build relationships between excitable grade-schoolers and “cool college kids” — trusted adults, neither parents nor teachers. In bright red T-shirts, SLIS brings UW–Madison to Allied Drive.

“We pulled up when all the kids were outside,” recalls graduate student Kari Sexe. “We only visit once a month, but they yelled, ‘The story people are coming! The story people are coming!’”

A quiet girl in a pastel sweater waits until others have left, then picks up “Never Smile at a Monkey.” She clutches it tightly to her chest, as if to absorb some of the knowledge — or make sure that no one can take it away.