Literacy partnership with LA Times

When children read, they discover new places and new ideas. They develop literacy skills they will continue to use as they make their way through high school and beyond. To encourage youth literacy, Access Books partnered with the LA Times to create this bilingual guide for parents and educators.

Thanks KTLA!

This organization has been transforming libraries in public schools of vulnerable communities for 20 years. With the goal that all children have the same opportunity to discover the magic of books, Access Books provides books for schools in minority communities and where at least 90% of students live below the poverty level.

​Watch the story here.

CNN, October 19, 2017

By Allie Torgan ​

​Los Angeles (CNN) — In 1999, Rebecca Constantino began doing a study at schools across Los Angeles. One day, she saw something that stopped her in her tracks. She had just completed a Ph.D. in language, literacy and learning, and she was analyzing children’s access to books in affluent and low-income communities.

“I was at a school in a wealthy community, and they were getting rid of almost brand-new books because they didn’t have room in the library,” Constantino said. She put the books in her car and drove them to a school in an underserved community. Shocked by the disparity she saw in public school libraries, Constantino became determined to bridge the gap. “School libraries are not funded well, and sometimes not funded at all,” Constantino said. “If you’re a child in an underserved community, you’re left with boring, outdated, tattered, uninteresting books.” Word spread about Constantino’s work, and books began piling up, literally. “I could actually fit about 4,000 books in my car with paint to paint a library,” she said. Today, her nonprofit, Access Books, has provided more than 1.5 million books to public-school and community libraries across California.

The group has also refurbished close to 350 libraries in public schools, battered women’s shelters and homeless shelters. Constantino enlists volunteers who work alongside the community to create a warm, vibrant and welcoming library space. Students and their families, as well as school staff and teachers, come together to pitch in. “We’re working together. It’s not a gift, it’s a partnership. It really builds a sense of community,” Constantino said. In addition to book donations and refurbishing libraries, the group offers author visits with schools and holds an annual writers conference for kids on the UCLA campus. “Our whole goal is to spread literacy and the benefits of literacy,” Constantino said. “We want kids to feel part of this literacy club. And that all members are welcome. And the doors are unlocked. You just come on in.” CNN’s Allie Torgan spoke with Constantino about her work. Below is an edited version of their conversation.

CNN: Every time you help a library, you provide about 6,000 books. Where do they come from?

Rebecca Constantino: Our books come from two sources. Donors purchase new, hardcover books, and we have groups that do book drives. People have more books than they realize, and their kids have more books that they don’t read than they realize. We have drop-off sites all over the city, and children collect for their bar and bat mitzvah. Local schools, Girl Scout troops, Boy Scout troops and churches all collect them. Ideally, people could replicate this anywhere in the country.

CNN: Who receives the books that your group collects?

Constantino: It’s children who cannot afford to go and buy books. And it’s children who don’t have access to quality, public libraries. Some kids have never been to a bookstore. They don’t have books at home; the source is the school library. Our goal is really to provide high-interest fiction and non-fiction, because you learn to read by reading for fun. Kids want to read “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” They want to read books that are multicultural and oriented towards them. They want to see faces like theirs. If one child discovers their imagination for us redoing that library, we were very successful.

CNN: What are some of the long-term effects of your work?

Constantino: I’ve spoken to children who have taught their parents how to read, who have taught their little brothers and sisters how to read, who have taken this experience of going to the school library and ventured out into a public library because their understanding is now you can check out books and borrow books and you can get a big stack of books. If we provide high-interest books and a beautiful library space, they do come and they do read. We found that in the schools that we serve, circulation doubles and triples after we’ve come. So, we know that kids come to the library. And the books that we give, they’re difficult to keep on the shelf because we’re giving books that kids are really interested in. My goal is that kids can always have a friend in a book and they can always turn to a book to find comfort, to learn something.

Read the story and the video on CNN.

Rewire, Oct. 17, 2017

By Jim Newberry

The best way to learn to read is by reading, research has shown. And a student leaving kindergarten with a good grasp of reading and writing sentences is commonly considered a key indicator for college and career readiness down the road.There’s lots of pressure—on students, parents, teachers, schools and districts—for students to learn how to read and write and maintain grade-level reading abilities. But not every child has adequate access to books at home, or even in their school libraries, putting some kids at an immediate disadvantage.

That’s why Rebecca Constantino founded Access Books in 1999. The Los Angeles-based organization refurbishes the libraries of underfunded public schools—providing not only updated and engaging books but also an inviting space for kids to explore and read. Today, the mostly volunteer-powered team has updated 262 libraries and provided 1,514,270 books to children and schools in need.

“Unfortunately, California ranks last in the nation in funding for school libraries. The federal government provides a meager 38 cents per child. With the cost of books and processing, it can take about 50 children to purchase one book for the school library.

Accordingly, children in underserved areas have little, if any access to books in the home or public library, and in some cases wait up to nine months for a popular book. In many affluent areas, children have access to books in the home as well as their school libraries since in-house fundraising can provide for great libraries.
​
This means affluent children gain all the academic benefits of access to books but more importantly, they gain access to the joys that reading and books can bring, while poor children are left without books to read.

Language Magazine – April 2016

Rebecca Constantino recounts the story of how funding an inner-city school’s library changed the whole dynamic of a family

Marilyn is a gregarious, loquacious, and active 4th grader at a school in south Los Angeles nestled near the 110 freeway in a highly industrial section of the city. Marilyn lives in a converted garage with her mother, father, three year old sister, and one year old brother. The family shares one room that serves as a kitchen, dining room, living room, and bedroom. There are no parks or bookstores near her home. The closest public library and grocery store are accessible only by bus. Marilyn’s family owns no books. “I love books but I don’t have any. Sometimes, the teacher lets me take a book home from her classroom. I feel really special. I really love to read. I love the feeling it gives me I just don’t have much to read,” Marilyn explains. She attends a school at which the library has been long neglected with outdated titles and a tattered selection. Some books are over 60 years old. Marilyn had never visited the public library. “We found out about it at school but it is so far away and we just don’t go,” she said. The closest bookstore from her home is a solid 90 minute bus ride. Surprisingly, when asked, Marilyn did not even know bookstores exist. “You mean that’s all they sell? You could buy some?” she inquired. Clearly, she’s never visited a bookstore.

What is the result when Marilyn has access to high-interest books at a well-stocked school library? On a Saturday in the spring, a group spent the day refurbishing the library with new paint, comfortable furniture, and more importantly, new, high interest books. This had a profound effect on Marilyn, her school culture, and her family.

School:

An excitement around the library was immediately created. As the principal said, “there was a buzz about books.” Teachers felt more confident about reading instruction because there were actually books kids could read. “It’s great to tell kids to read but when there is nothing to read, you feel bad and insincere,” said one teacher. As the principal added, “a library on the campus completely shifted the school. Reading, books and reading books for fun became the focus. Children see that books are not for taking tests. Books are for life. When you don’t have good books, you don’t read. Children felt valued when they got the library.”

Marilyn:

While Marilyn liked reading before the library refurbishment, her interest was amped up when a new library was installed. She stated “when you have old books, you don’t want to read and a little bit you don’t feel like it is important. When you have new books, you want to read. I could not believe all these people came to my school so I could have a library. It made me feel so great. I just love the place. I would give up pizza before giving up going to the library.” Marilyn and her friends often visit the library after school and wish they could hang out there during recess.

Marilyn claims that the library has transformed her. “I read a Rick Riordan book but then we got the whole set in the library. I read them all and got my friends to read them. Now, my friends and I like to talk about what we read. I am so in love with Rick Riordan. Sometimes, walking down the street, I think of stuff from his stories. I see Rick Riordan everywhere. It changed my life. I liked to read but now I know I am really a reader. I did not know I am a reader until we got the books and the library,” she eagerly reported. Marilyn’s teacher reports that she is a more confident writer and reader in class. She is eager to share her knowledge about what she reads. “The light bulb went on. The kid is in love with reading. I never see her without a book,” the teacher reported.

Family:

Perhaps one of the most profound effects the school library had on Marilyn occurred in the one room apartment above a garage. Marilyn brought home books that she wanted to read but she also brought some to read to her siblings. Her mother listened during the read alouds. Soon, Marilyn was reading daily to her mother and siblings. They started with picture books and quickly progressed. It is now part of the family routine. “One of the greatest things is my mom and I both love Harry Potter. When we are just around- at the market or doing laundry, we talk about the stories. We have so much fun. My mom likes it when I add to the stories. I really make her laugh. She told me when she is at work, she thinks about our stories,” Marilyn eagerly says. Marilyn’s mom has made it her goal to become a proficient enough reader to read Harry Potter to her younger children.

Marilyn’s story is one of many that show a school library has profound effects on children. While we can measure the effects on their test scores, it is more difficult to measure the meaningful, long term effects. How do we measure a parent’s new interest in reading to children? How do we measure a child’s obsession with Rick Riordan stories? How do we measure what kind of reader her younger siblings will become? We can’t. However, we can fund school libraries.

Rebecca Constantino, PhD, is the founder & executive director of Access Books, a non-profit that refurbishes inner city school libraries. She has published over 100 articles and a book in the areas of literacy development, equity in education, urban school and cultural perspectives of language acquisition and reading courses at UC Irvine, UCLA, and Pepperdine University. Her favorite children’s book is Caps for Sale. She read it daily for years to one of her three children.

An elementary school in Watts battling dwindling resources found a unique partnership that is giving their community new hope, and students an advantage, by turning to books and not iPads to help children learn.

At the school library at the 107th Street Elementary School in Watts, there isn’t an iPad, or iPhone, or laptop in sight.

The students seem to think all of the books, and the story time, are a little old fashioned.

“I like how it’s old-school because everyone now is using their phones to read,” Joanna Perez, a 10-year-old student, said.

By Lauren Barack

With Timmy Failure, Greg Heffley, Captain Underpants, and Big Nate at your aid, anything, at least kid-related, seems possible. That’s exactly the hope of authors Stephan Pastis, Jeff Kinney, Dav Pilkey, and Lincoln Peirce.This kid lit tour-de-force combines efforts at Drawn Together, an event taking place this Saturday, June 20, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, CA. The four authors will meet fans, sign autographs, and answer questions while raising funds for Access Books, a Los Angeles–based nonprofit that rebuilds—and stocks—libraries in schools where the majority of students are below the poverty line.

“I think what shocked me was that there wasn’t a budget for school libraries in those areas,” says Kinney. “To me, that was really unthinkable.”

This is the second Drawn Together event that the four authors have held in the past two years. The first benefited school libraries in Moore, OK, after an EF-5 tornado destroyed much of the city in 2013.
All proceeds from this Saturday’s event will go to Access Books, which serves school libraries across the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) as well as Pasadena and San Bernardino, CA.

“Our goal is to provide books to children who don’t have access to books,” says Rebecca Constantino, executive director of the organization, which she founded in 1999. “These schools can’t do fund-raising themselves.”

School libraries selected by Access Books receive about 3,500 titles as well as physical updating, with volunteers painting walls, setting up books, and arranging new furniture that has been donated. A librarian on the Access Books staff oversees the cataloging of new books, and all of the work on a library site is finished in a day.

So far, more than 200 libraries have been refurbished, says Constantino—including school libraries, community libraries at homeless shelters, and foster care center locations. The group completed six libraries since last spring.

Schools looking for help from Access Books often find out about the organization through word of mouth. But recently, LAUSD reached out to the organization and gave Constantino a list of schools that in need of assistance, she says.

Presigned books will be for sale for $10 and posters available for five dollars. Kinney says that if children want to bring a single, favorite title from home, the gang of four will be happy to sign one per child. To Kinney and the others, getting books into the hands of kids—and supporting libraries at the same time—is what the event is all about.

“I learned to be a cartoonist because of books I found in the library,” he says. “I learned to code a computer because of books in the library. We not only had great libraries but great bookstores growing up. And that’s been one of the losses in our time.”

The Saturday event at the Disney concert Hall is expected to bring an infusion of capital to Access Books. Tickets are priced at $35 each—or $42 through Ticketmaster—and Constantino says that the price of every ticket covers about five new books. Doors open at noon, with Julie Bowen from ABC’s Modern Family serving as host.

(Read the article on School Library Journal here)