The tutoring program at Sacramento State will use donated books to help teach the children at the low-income schools how to read.

Sac State’s Reaching Excellence After Developing Effective Reading Skills tutoring program, also known as READERS, teamed up with nine local Starbucks locations for a children’s book drive.

There were about 1,000 children’s books donated to the different Starbucks locations.

There are about 60 students in the program who go out to help the children in the four nearby elementary schools. — Pamela O’Kane, Director of the READERS program, explained that a lot of the children at these schools are a year behind and are learning English as their second language or have parents that do not know how to read.

“A lot of children at these schools can read about five words, but by the end of the year they are reading first grade books,” O’Kane said.

The tutoring program is open to all students but right now it is mostly students from the liberal studies department that help participate.

The student tutors at Sac State bring books to read to the children but this can get expensive for a college student and since the children have very little reading materials, O’Kane decided to ask Starbucks to help collect books as well.

This way the children are getting a variety of reading material to learn and the responsibility to supply books is not all on the tutors.

The donated books will also be used for an event the READERS program and the children host at the end of the year called the Celebration of Reading.

The children read with their tutors in front of family and friends to show off what they have learned and also receive more books to keep practicing.-

The nine Starbucks locations that participated in the book drive are Arden Plaza, Date and Madison, Pavilions, 38th and J, Sunrise and Madison, Howe and Fair Oaks, Madison and Dewey, Watt and Fair Oaks, and Arden and Morse. ——The READERS program is not the only organization at Sac State that is helping further children’s reading ability.

In addition, Alpha Phi Omega is helping the Sacramento Bee’s third annual Children’s Book Drive by collecting books in the University Union and Lassen Hall.

They will also be helping sort through all the books during the month of May.

Books for the Sacramento Bee Children’s Book Drive were collected at the Sacramento Public Library, Borders Books, and River City Bank, along with the University Union and Lassen Hall.

Danielle Sazio can be reached at [email protected]