Local teens create a Read Aloud program

FIRST PERSON | RYAN TONKOVICH

When libraries closed in the spring of 2020 due to the pandemic, my sister Natalie and I wondered how families with young children would get access to books. We contacted a family friend who was a principal at a local school in San Francisco. She told us many of her students didn’t have new books to read — and some families were worried their children might forget English, since they weren’t speaking it at home.

Natalie was in 8th grade at Convent of the Sacred Heart. I was in 6th grade at Stuart Hall School for Boys. We had just started Zoom school ourselves and thought, “Hey, we have a lot of picture books in our basement. Why don’t we read to her students over Zoom?”

We pitched the idea, and started our Zoom Read Aloud Week over Spring Break in March 2020. Every day, my sister and I chose a different book from our basement library to read. As kids, we had loved seeing the pictures in the books while our parents read to us, so we took photos of each page and showed each page as we read aloud. We added questions on each page to engage the kids.

We couldn’t leave our house, so we had lots of time. Natalie and I practiced reading in different voices, coming up with questions and thinking of creative ways to engage the kids. Some parents and even the principal of the school joined our read-aloud sessions.

The kids loved seeing us, and that made us happy. We got to know them, too, since we saw them every day during spring break. After the week, the families asked us if we could continue reading with them. We realized that it would be more engaging to read to them one-on-one, plus having weekly sessions would allow the reader and the child to develop a friendship.

That’s how “Read Aloud Buddies” got started.

Through word of mouth, we began to get inquiries from all over San Francisco, then the Bay Area, and eventually Southern California. Now we serve families in New York and Texas as well. We have high school students and college students volunteering as readers after our training. At Convent & Stuart Hall, we have a Read Aloud Buddies club. We even have one middle schooler reading for us. Each week, we read to more than 50 children. Now, in our sixth year, we have logged more than 9,000 hours of book-reading time.

We do book drives and seek grant funding to purchase books to give the children. Most recently, we’ve started in-person sessions at local libraries, preschools and kindergarten classrooms.

We welcome new readers and new children. If you are a student interested in reading, or a parent with a child who would love being read to, please visit our website. If you would like to start your own chapter, our website has instructions. We have an Amazon wish list for books, and we are always looking for donors to help us give books.

Now is the perfect time to get involved: October is National Book Month. 

Ryan Tonkovich is a senior at Stuart Hall High School at Octavia and Pine streets.