Dickens Reads

Our 8th grade boys at Charles Dickens School earned a new title today -- they are now officially the "Guardians" of the school's Little Free Library. They will be in charge of keeping it stocked with books and encouraging younger students to take books home at the end of the day. Today they got to meet special guest Keith G. Sulzer, the retired Cleveland police captain who installed that same library nearly a decade ago. ❤️

Our Dickens Reads students deserve an end-of-year reward for all that reading progress they've made! So we treated them to a visit to the Immersive Disney exhibition. They had a blast! Thank you to the tutors who chaperoned, to Alexandria Keller for coordinating the field trip, & to Lighthouse Immersive for providing free passes for our kids.

Janiyah's message to Dickens Reads.

Here is reporter January Keaton's final summary of what we accomplished during our time at Charles Dickens School in Cleveland. Let's hear it for our volunteers, partners and funders! You helped give each of these children a firm reading foundation, and that is a gift that will remain with them for a lifetime.

Education Station: Dickens Reads wraps up for the school year at Cleveland's Charles Dickens Elementary Each Charles Dickens Elementary students who attended 3News' after-school tutoring program showed improvement in reading and writing.

We are missing our Dickens kids! These are the sweet handmade gifts they gave the volunteers on the last day of tutoring. The artworks are made from flower petals and leaves, and the kids wrote "Thank you for helping us grow" on each one. 🌻🌱🌿💐😪

Thanks January Keaton for this excellent story about two special visitors who came to meet our Dickens Reads students!

Education Station: Author from Shaker Heights and Cleveland illustrator inspire students through 'Stella' Clothilde Ewing and Lynn Gaines read their best-selling children's book "Stella Keeps the Sun Up" to Charles Dickens Elementary students.

Wishing a happy birthday to the one person who has never missed a session of Dickens Reads -- program coordinator Rhonda Crowder! Miss Rhonda, we appreciate your leadership so much, and all you did for our kids! 🎂
❤Enjoy yourself today and do something special just for you!!

When you have spent your Tuesdays and Thursdays together for the past 8 months, it's kind of hard to say goodbye. During our last Dickens Reads session, there were special gifts shared with our students (books, of course!), private conversations between tutors and tutees, and a heartfelt wish from all us adults that we helped unlock the joy of reading for these kids! 🤞❤ 📚

We helped each child fill out the paperwork for their first library card during last week's Dickens Reads field trip to the Cleveland Public Library , and got them hyped up to join the summer reading club. Second grader Benjamin was totally prepared --he already had his card in his pocket when we walked over! His library card is one of his most prized possessions.

Thursday was our final day of tutoring. So the volunteers took the students on a stroll to the Cleveland Public Library . There they got to meet library manager Marina Marquez and her staff, who had a storytime & crafts prepared. It was fun! Stay tuned for more photos, there were so many special moments.

As we wind up a year of amazing progress with our Dickens Reads scholars, we were proud to bring in a real-life author and illustrator for them to meet! Our guests were Clothilde Ewing and Lynn Gaines--two Cleveland-born talents who have just published a lovely children's book with Simon & Schuster, "Stella Keeps The Sun Up". 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 Their very presence reaffirmed for our kids that they can achieve anything! And their imaginative story about little Stella reminded the students of our main message -- reading is fun!