LEAP mixes sunny weather with spoken words at Read-In

NEW HAVEN — Although Leadership, Education, and Athletics in Partnership’s annual summer Read-In on the New Haven Green is an oral tradition dating back decades, new characters join the story every year.

“This is an opportunity to have reading a fun experience,” said LEAP Executive Director Henry Fernandez at Friday’s Read-In. “Also, our goal is to get volunteers involved, to just demonstrate how important reading is for every child.”

By inviting elected officials and community volunteers to read to children in the program on the Green, Fernandez said it should serve as an example for a communitywide reading initiative beyond the nonprofit reading program’s student population.

Connecticut Reps. Al Paolillo and Toni Walker, who both read to small groups, said Friday was their first time participating as volunteers, although others, such as state Sens. Gary Winfield and Martin Looney, said it’s been a tradition.

“You know why I love reading?” Winfield told LEAP’s children. As a child he “didn’t have access to a lot that others had access to, but what we did have access to were books.”

As the volunteers read age-appropriate books to smaller groups of about eight to 10 children, each book took on its own personality.

Walker, reading to 11- and 12-year-old boys, began a conversation about red pandas with the group, encouraging a visit to the Beardsley Zoo in Bridgeport as a fun and accessible activity. Rep. Pat Dillon, reading a book on Josephine Baker to 7- and 8-year-old girls, asked her group how familiar they are with Baker’s birthplace of

St. Louis.

“It’s far away, and on the river, actually,” she said.

Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute Associate Director Josiah Brown passed his book around to the 9- and 10-year old boys, as they took turns reading. When the topic of the book turned to timberwolves in the Midwest, Brown asked if they could draw any connections to the NBA. New Haven Symphony Orcehstra Executive Director Elaine Carroll took her reading to new heights by playing flute for a group of 7- and 8-year old boys.

“Reading is important because when you’re feeling sad, you can read something that makes you feel happy,” said Mayor Toni Harp, welcoming the program onto the Green. “When you want to learn, you can read something that teaches you how to do something you don’t know how to do.”

Several of LEAP’s students were new to the ReadIn as well, including Lillian Smith, 11, and Brandon Hatcher, 11.

In past summers, Brandon said he would ordinarily stay home and play sports outside. Neither Brandon nor Lillian said the educational nature of the program bored them.

“I like the field trips,” Lillian said.

Brandson said he wanted to see what doing a summer camp is like, and he’s enjoyed himself so far.

Cassidy Jackson, 9, who has done the program for three years, said she likes to have an opportunity to practice reading and her vocabulary.

LEAP counselor Quentin Kelly, a senior at Southern Connecticut State University, said he finds the program to be infectious.

“A lot of kids in New Haven need a safe spot rather than being in the streets,” he said. “And it’s important because of the summer slide,” the concept that children do not retain all of the information they learn in school over the summer without year round instruction.

LEAP said it is reaching 530 children this summer at five sites throughout the city, which includes daily read-alouds with the program’s counselors.

Arnold Gold / Hearst Connecticut Media Charles Noble, right, of Hamden reads “Smile” during the LEAP Read-In on the Green in New Haven on Friday.

Tramire Miller, left, 7, controls the keys of the flute while New Haven Symphony CEO Elaine Carroll plays the instrument after reading “The Flute Player.”