New Haven Independent

Knowing the critical role parents play, especially in the beginning school years, in laying down the fundamentals, Averna and her colleague Barbara Dow wrote and received a grant from the (New Haven Public School Foundation) to start a program they call Moonlight Readers, which teaches parents techniques to help their kids enjoy and achieve more as young readers.

So once a month the kids wait excitedly for their parents — or in some instances grandmothers or older siblings — to arrive in Averna and Dow’s lively, text-festooned classroom. Dow reads a story, as she did this Wednesday, to some 25 kids neatly arrayed on the rug. This week it was Leo Leonni’s tale of the friendly mouse Frederick.

Dow models reading behaviors not only for the kids, but for the kids’ significant adults assembled behind them. “I wonder what’s going to happen next?” she asks. “Frederick looked at the granary. Mmm, I think a granary might be a place that houses little grains of sand, where a small thing like a mouse would be comfortable hiding.”

After Dow finishes, she takes the kids into the adjoining room for an arts and crafts project based on the book.

When the door is firmly shut, the parents become Averna’s students. Averna was this day teaching long-vowel spelling. (“How many ways to make the long “a” sound? Well, there are “ay, ai, ei as in the word vein, and then the “a_e” pattern as in “make.”)

With each correct answer given by, for example, Lynn Galloway, Averna dishes out a generous handful of mini Snickers or other candy, tales of the challenges of parenthood, and ample praise.

The $1200 grant from the foundation pays for the candy — and there’s a lot, which is why the door has to be kept shut, because the kids with Miss Dow have discovered the candy extravaganza accompanying long vowel recognition. The grant also provides for a copy of the book being read each week to be sent home with every family, as well as for juice and other items for the social half hour that precedes the agreeable lesson.

Averna said that she and her colleague put in a combined five or six hours preparing for each of the monthly classes, and of course the class itself. Their time is completely volunteered.

“We began with a dozen kids,” said Dow, “and now we’ve had to cap it at 25.” Each kid must have a parent or guardian commit to going to each of the monthly sessions, or in lieu of a parent, even an older sibling such as Destiny Thomas who accompanies her first grade sister Inari Johnson at each Moonlight Readers.

At Wednesday’s session, several siblings were in attendance and at least two grandmothers.

And is it effective? Jackie Edgehill found a lot of long vowel patterns but couldn’t find words enough to praise Dow and Averna.” Ms. Averna is such a great teacher,” she said, speaking of herself and her daughter Kiayla. As the bright and charming first grader tore through “Zeke the Cat,” sounding out the words, like “gravity,” even if she was unsure of their meanings, her mom said that thanks to the Moonlight Readers sessions, reading is a lot more fun with Kiayla.

“I’ve learned to ask questions along the way,” Edgehill said, “like who the main character is, and what’s going to happen next?”

Previous sessions were on just such reading “prompts.” Others featured syllable types, then phonics, and then lists of irregular of “sight words,” that is, words that disobey the rules so that the kids have to memorize them, like “their” and “other.”

“I never learned this stuff in the first grade,” said one dad as he opened a Starburst.

“Neither did I, ” said Averna. “I didn’t break things down this way until I started teaching.”

As the sun began to set through the windows, the parents, grandparents, siblings, uncles and aunts continued on with Averna and the lesson, all animated, and fortified by chocolate, as Averna’s infectious laugh and humor rang out into the classroom.

In an area like West Rock, which is relatively isolated and doesn’t have many after-school programs, Moonlight Readers is both educational and social and in one fell swoop fulfills many important needs in this community.

The enterprising teachers are getting ready to submit their application for a renewal of the grant for next year, this time asking for $1500, to defray costs of DVDs that accompany some books, and just in case the cost of the Snickers also goes up.