When The Citadel moved to a remote-learning model in mid-March due to the coronavirus quarantine, most of the outreach programs at the Krause Center for Leadership and Ethics had to be temporarily halted. But social distancing requirements did not stop former Service Learning Director Conway Saylor and Community Engagement Fellow Mike Akers, \u201919, from coming up with a way to ensure that The Citadel continued to make an impact in the community and that cadets were able to complete their community service requirements. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their idea\u2014Story Time with The Citadel, a library of videos produced for kids by students, faculty and staff sharing their love of reading through the books they chose to read. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBasically, we were brainstorming about what was needed and how we could help during the pandemic,\u201d said Saylor, a 30-year professor of psychology who headed up the college\u2019s service-learning program until retiring in June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Akers, whose work as a community engagement fellow in the Krause Center focuses on Title I schools, the Story Time program was an obvious choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cStory Time was a natural fit for us because we have cadets and students who have close relationships with children of the Charleston area who greatly benefit from reading assistance,\u201d said Akers. \u201cWhen The Citadel went to a virtual platform, our number-one concern was how to continue to provide tutoring to children in need while we were under a stay-at-home order.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the pandemic interrupting the academic year and South Carolina struggling to keep up in literacy education, Story Time became a much needed resource for students and educators as they tried to continue the academic year online. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWritten language sounds different and is more complex than spoken language, so the more we can read aloud to our students, the more they can understand the structure of language and the way it flows and the way it\u2019s connected together,\u201d said Britnie Kane, Ph.D., an assistant professor of literacy in the Zucker Family School of Education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Kane, reading aloud to children helps with comprehension and language skills. A strong foundation in reading sets the course for students as they move from learning to read to reading to learn. \u201cThere\u2019s actually evidence to suggest that culturally we tend to stop reading to kids in early elementary school, but that it might actually be beneficial to read out loud much longer than that because language continues to develop,\u201d said Kane. \u201cThe structure of it continues to get more complex as kids read more difficult texts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Literacy education is integral to the Zucker School curriculum. The Citadel Summer Reading Program, a summer camp that pairs graduate students with young students reading below grade level, has been helping Lowcountry families for more than 40 years. The school also offers a Master of Education degree in literacy education and a graduate certificate program for teachers who seek literacy teacher certification. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cadet Christal Altidor, a senior psychology major from Florence who serves as a peer leadership undergraduate study partner in the Krause Center, has made four Story Time videos. When the quarantine was announced, Altidor was on spring break in Houston at roommate Cadet Sydney Williams\u2019 home. With the help of Williams, who became her producer, and Williams\u2019 mother, who unearthed some children\u2019s books, Altidor was ready to read. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTypically, I go to James Simons Elementary School and Charleston Development Academy to help kids with their homework, and that experience really transitioned well into reading for Story Time. It was like I never left,\u201d said Altidor, who wants to be a social worker when she graduates. \u201cI want to work with children as much as possible, so that\u2019s my motivation for reading for Story Time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Story Time library continues to grow and includes classics like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Where the Wild Things Are and The Three Little Pigs. It also includes Huevos Verdes Con Jam\u00f3n and Buenas Noches Luna\u2014the Spanish translations for Green Eggs and Ham and Goodnight Moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sara Fernandez Medina, Ph.D., who teaches Spanish in the Department of Modern Languages, was searching for an internship alternative for her students and a way to help the Spanish community when she discovered the Krause Center\u2019s Story Time initiative. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have a high number of Hispanic kids in the community who don\u2019t speak English,\u201d said Fernandez, \u201cso I said, let\u2019s do this in Spanish.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to Spanish, one cadet read a story in Chinese. Thirty volunteers participated in the Story Time effort, and more than 40 videos were published. In the 2019-2020 academic year, students, faculty and staff logged 27,468 hours of community service through the Krause Center for an economic impact of almost $700,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cService learning is the heart of what we do in the Krause Center,\u201d said Akers. \u201cStory Time allowed us to continue our mission, and we hope that it will become an enduring resource for families long after the pandemic is over.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When The Citadel moved to a remote-learning model in mid-March due to the coronavirus quarantine, most of the outreach programs at the Krause Center for Leadership and Ethics had to be temporarily halted. But social distancing requirements did not stop former Service Learning Director Conway Saylor and Community Engagement Fellow Mike Akers, \u201919, from coming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":694,"featured_media":756,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-character","category-pillars"],"yoast_head":"\n