Reading with Grace and Mercy

I walked into New Walk of Life Church on Monday to an excited chatter about dancing giraffes. Eleven children, aged five to ten, sat in pews six feet apart, eyes bouncing between our social work intern at the front of the room and the books in their laps, enraptured in the story she was reading aloud. Our Reading with Grace and Mercy literacy program started two weeks ago and we could not be more excited.

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 3:45pm to 4:45pm we’ve got our neighborhood kids coming to the Mercy House for a snack and time running and playing in the backyard. Afterward, they walk down to the New Walk of Life Church where one of our social work interns, program assistants, and volunteer librarian are prepared with age-appropriate books, a lesson plan, reading comprehension questions, and funny voices for different characters. At the end of the day, the students get to visit Uncle John’s Library to take a couple of books home with them. They’re reading for stars on the star chart and they are competitive!

This program is the heart of Mercy House and New Walk of Life Church. Literacy rates among adults in our neighborhood are incredibly low, and it’s prohibitive to leaving a life of poverty. Children who can’t read well grow into adults who can’t read well and adults who can’t read well can’t work a livable wage job to provide for their family and then have children that they can’t help learn to read and read well and the cycle continues.

It’s important. What we’re doing matters. West Montgomery is a food desert and could easily be categorized as a book desert. When you haven’t grown up with parents who spend every night reading to you because they can’t read well themselves when you haven’t seen a stack of books in your home and known with confidence you can pick one up and know what to do with it, then reading is intimidating! Books are scary! It’s yet again a reminder of what you can’t have and don’t know.

That’s not okay with us. We’re pouring books into our neighborhood, teaching children what to do with them, encouraging them to try and to overcome that insecurity, and incentivizing them until they don’t need the incentive at all.

And you know what surprises us the most? These children want to read. They’re so enthusiastic and boy are they trying their hardest. They just need some encouragement, a little more targeted support, and some confidence-building opportunities.

And it’s working.

This week, our third week into the program, one of our elementary school students, little Leyla (name changed), walked over to me at the end of the program, carrying her selection from Uncle John’s Library, pointed to the title, and using the tools our instructor had taught her, sounded out the title. Before the program started just a few weeks ago, Leyla couldn’t sight read and didn’t know how to sound out the letters. What other incredible gains are we going to see? What strong, imposing trees will grow out of the seeds we’re planting today?

I know they’ll be more powerful stories than any of the ones we could ever dream to write ourselves.

God Bless,
Pastor Ken Austin