Changes are underway at Raising A Reader Aspen to Parachute including a new executive director and two new literacy-development programs for families of young children.
After 10 years as the organization’s executive director, Rick Blauvelt will retire this summer. Cindy Blachly, formerly director of the High School High Scholar (HS)2 summer program at Colorado Rocky Mountain School, will take Blauvelt’s place. According to a release Blauvelt said this change comes at an opportune time.
“With two successful pilot programs about to enter a second academic season, our staff is energized,” Blauvelt said. “Additional program ideas are percolating, and it seems like a great time for the fresh perspective of a new leader.”
Blachly directed the program for eight years at CRMS provided an innovative college preparatory curriculum for urban minority high school students who will be the first in their families to graduate from college.
Anyone who has enrolled a child in a local preschool from Aspen to Parachute in the past 15 years is probably familiar with Raising A Reader’s red book bags.
Since 2004 as many as 2,000 children each year have received the red book bag, and the loan of four books each week for read-aloud time at home with family.
According to the release national studies show that read-aloud time and related conversations with parents help prepare children for early success in school by building vocabulary, language proficiency, curiosity, alphabet and numeracy skills, and interest in books.
Last fall, with these school and reading readiness goals in mind, Raising A Reader launched a pilot program called 1-2-3 Let’s Read. More than 300 children, ages 4 to 6, received the gift of a new storybook every month from October through April.
When the program was proposed last fall, Brad Ray, superintendent at Garfield 16 school district in Parachute, immediately suggested his district for the pilot according to the release.
Motheread, Raising A Reader’s other new program, went a step further in the development of literacy-building skills for parents. The program, based on a national model, provided intensive guidance to low-income mothers, many of whom never experienced read-aloud in their own childhood.
According to the release for new director, Cindy Blachly, this positive momentum is inspiring. “I am very excited to grow Raising A Reader’s programs and look forward to working with our schools and libraries to get books into the hands of more families and to provide parents with the resources and inspiration to read aloud with their children every day,” she says. For more information on Raising A Reader Aspen to Parachute and its full portfolio of literacy and reading-readiness programs, visit their website at http://www.rar4kids.org.