The world comes alive more completely and imaginatively between leaves of paper much more than on any screen. Second only to pure, user-generated imagination, the creativity to which children find access in books is second to none—yet literacy is still a challenge. A kid who doesn’t like to read is a kid who hasn’t yet been properly introduced to reading.
BookPALS is a reading aloud program staffed by volunteers from the professional acting community via the performers’ union, the Screen Actors Guild. Professional actors adopt classrooms and visit weekly to read to kids in the kindergarten through fifth grade level. The actors get to reach out and even use some of their dialects and trained voice work, and the kids get barriers blown away as the world opens wider with the turn of each page. Over 100,000 kids are served every week through chapters in a dozen cities.There are also phone lines and websites with recorded readings so kids can access imagination any time.
BookPALS is founded on a clear premise: children must be exposed to the magic of books to develop a love of reading. Who better to make that magic come alive than actors gifted in the art of storytelling?
Change by Doing 