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Thursday, April 24, 2003

By Ervin Dyer, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

With four pre-schoolers perched at his knees, Pirates pitcher Kris Benson opened the book "The Letters Are Lost" and started reading.

	Volunteer Kerry McAleer-Forte, left, reads to Isis Coffey, 3, yesterday during the Read Around Pittsburgh program at the Children's Museum. (John Beale, Post-Gazette)

His young audience heard the tale of the "H" that hid under the hat, the "I" that longed for strawberry ice cream and the "J" that jumped out of Jack in the Box.

Benson reads bedtime stories to his children, ages 9, 6 and 2. And, while he said he'd rather pitch in front of 50,000 than read in front of 50, early literacy was important enough to bring the soft-spoken athlete to the Pittsburgh Children's Museum yesterday.

He came with his wife, Anna, and about 40 other adults from local corporations who were part of Read Around Pittsburgh, an annual event that celebrates the three-year collaboration between the United Way of Allegheny County and Beginning With Books to help build awareness of early literacy.

The Bensons were among more than 250 volunteers at 27 child-care organizations in the area who spent the morning delivering a message that went beyond the books they read: Investing in literacy now pays dividends later.

Boosting children's reading and language skills helps prepare them for success in life, said Kathie Likeness, executive director of Beginning With Books/Center for Early Literacy.

The program works with parents and community groups to break generational cycles of poor literacy and to find ways to promote lifelong reading. When working with child-care centers, it provides language and child development instruction and gives tips on how adults can help children choose age-appropriate, culturally sensitive books.

"It's important for kids to see themselves in stories," said Likeness. "It has to be relevant to their experience and meaningful to their lives."

The United Way has provided more than $3 million annually in programs such as this one that support school readiness and youth development.

Much of the funding is in response to local studies that show 38 percent of fifth-graders in Allegheny County are reading below grade level, that children from low-income families typically enter school with language abilities a full year-and-a-half behind their peers from middle-income families, and that 34 percent of first-graders in Pittsburgh area schools don't have the skills to meet reading standards.

At the Pittsburgh Children's Museum, books and reading were the focus of the event, but there was stiff competition from the many hands-on and noise-making exhibits.

They didn't sway 4-year-old Charles, however, who was at the museum with classmates from his child-care program at the Hill House and was happy to talk about books. He named his favorites as "The Three Little Pigs" and "Jack and the Beanstalk."

Then he sat in on a reading of "Wild Things" and gave it a nod of approval: "I liked it."