Every year since at least the 1970s, the Heber Valley Rotary Club bestowed upon all first graders in the Wasatch County School District a gift they’d always dreamed of: a dictionary.
“Dictionaries used to be important. You come across a word when you’re reading. You don’t understand it. You’re supposed to look it up. It’s supposed to increase literacy,” said Rotarian David Barrus.
But since looking up anything in an analog fashion is a practice consumed by the maw of the digital age, the Rotary Club realized they’d have to shift gears if they wanted to effectively achieve their goal of promoting literacy.
So, instead of funneling hundreds of dollars into wordy tomes no child would ever touch, the Rotary Club began purchasing picture books for the school district’s first graders 10 years ago, visiting classrooms to gift the books and read them aloud every month of the school year.
The change was instantaneous. The kids were actually excited about the program.
“They listen so much better in that lesson than when they’re listening to some of the other teachers that come in and teach,” said Sally Raff, first-grade teacher at JR Smith Elementary School. “There is something different about the Rotary Club when they come. I think (it’s) knowing that they’re going to get that book that somebody read to them. They don’t get a book when I read it to them.”
And the students aren’t receiving basic books, like Dr. Seuss or Eric Carle. Raff noted that there was only one instance in her four years of teaching at the elementary school in which the Rotary Club gifted the students a picture book she had heard of.
“The Best Worst Day Ever” by Mark Batterson is one example of a book the Rotary Club gave her class. Afterwards, Raff heard from another teacher that one student had gone home that day to learn his brother was having a bad day.
“He said, ‘But it can be the best bad day ever,’” Raff recalled. “So, he went home and used that connection to the book. I thought that was really cool.”
It’s not just the students, but the Rotarians who get something out of the read-alongs. Despite being a former librarian of 35 years, Kristen Bowcutt said it’s fellow Rotarian Andy Dahmen whom the kids love most.
“I went last time because he wasn’t able to go. And they’re like, ‘Where’s your friend? Where’s the boy?’” she laughed. “They adore him. They’ll come up with their book and want his autograph.”
Barrus’ daughter, Marianne, is equally popular. She won Miss Heber Valley in 2023, and her father likes to joke that the first graders would rather have someone prettier than himself reading to them.
“They want a princess,” Barrus said.
In Raff’s eyes, the greatest importance of the reading program is building children’s book collections so they can read a variety of material more often. First graders are only allowed to check out one book from the school library at a time, and how often they visit the public library is at the whim of adults.
“Building their library, they can go back and read it over and over again,” she said. “Maybe they can’t even read all these words, but it’s been read to them already. So, they can pick out, and they can remember what the story is about, and they can try.”
During a presentation about literacy to the Rotary Club, representatives from Wasatch County School District reiterated the reading program’s positive impacts.
“As a parent, I love the books that you provide the first graders. We read those in our home. My kids are so excited when they come home with a book,” said school board member Breanne Dedrickson.
Superintendent Garrick Peterson shared a chart showing the percentage of the school district’s 10th graders who were proficient in language arts, as measured through the RISE Assessment. This year’s proficiency was 68%, but that proficiency was 32% six years ago, according to Peterson.
He said the focus of reading in kindergarten and first grade is establishing skills like the alphabet, phonics and phonemic awareness, essential foundations for future proficiency.
“You go out, and you meet with our kids in first grade, and eventually those first graders move up,” Peterson said. “You can see the culminating effort of the school district, of parents, of the Rotary Club. And trying to get kids to do better? It works.”
The Heber Valley Rotary Club relies on sponsors and donations to fund the program. On Monday, the Heber Valley Railroad will be hosting a “reading railroad” train, with every penny of proceeds going toward the reading program. The train will feature sing-alongs, dance parties and an Old West gunfight before boarding. Cosplaying a favorite book character is highly encouraged.
The reading railroad fundraiser is Monday, 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tickets are $15 for adults and $5 for students and available at hebertrain.com.