Children's Reading Program Sets Sights on Local Schools

Red Rover Readers, a program that aims to help children develop positive relationships between people and animals through stories and discussion, is planning to bring its mission to Brooklyn and has chosen Ditmas Park as its first area to expand into.

Maggie Galvin, a two-year resident of Ditmas Park and volunteer with the program, is spearheading Red Rover Reader's expansion to the neighborhood and is currently looking for schools to partner with. 

"My role is to partner with local educators of the second, third, fourth, fifth grade, and engage the kids in conversation," Galvin said.  

"The program is centered around elementary school age kids and encourages critical thinking, enthusiasm for reading end expanding their use of empathy towards others," she continued. "We use carefully chosen children's books about animals as our main tool in the program, and all of them conform to academic standards." 

Volunteers such as Galvin visit participating schools once a week for up to five weeks, spending 30 minutes to a full class period with a group of students to discuss these topics. 

"It's generally very flexible," she said. "We try to engage them as we read, and ask very open-ended questions. There are no wrong or right answers. They feel good when you ask them, 'What do you think?'"

Galvin said she felt strongly about bringing the program, which is predominately concentrated in California, to the East Coast and Brooklyn specifically. "Some kids may have never seen a dog before and this gets them relating to non-human creatures," she said.

"It can prevent future cruelty to animals, and if people have those skills, they might be less inclined to bully," she added. "You always hear people having to go around putting out fires, why not just prevent the fire?"" 

Galvin noted that she hopes to speak to any educator that would be interested in bringing this sort of program to their school, and said educators that want to become directly involved with the program can take a training course on Oct. 27. 

"They're trained through Red Rover Readers and there's five hours of content," she said. "It's self-paced and teachers recieve all our resources and support to bring the program into the school. In some ways that's better, because they're already there, they already know their kids."

Though she would love to be immediately involved in the program's development in schools, Galvin said she's just as and sometimes even more happy to see teachers bring the program into their classrooms. "So long as it's being done, I'm glad," she said.