WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED L.O.V.E.

Project L.O.V.E. stands for Let Older Volunteers Educate.

More than 100 committed (mainly retired) volunteers help students in Prince Edward Island schools with their work, usually with reading.

Volunteers go to their schools once per week, spending between an hour and a whole morning or afternoon in the school.

They usually help one student at a time, listening and coaching them with reading, reading stories to the students to model good reading for them, helping with classroom projects, or catching up on missed assignments.

Teachers who work with the Project L.O.V.E. volunteers will all agree: Their students benefit greatly from this help, gaining self-confidence through the interest shown in them by the volunteers.

Parkside School Volunteers Swing into Gear

Volunteers at Parkside School in Summerside have been anticipating the call to come in and help students with their reading.

At a recent meeting, volunteers discussed the startup of this year's program with teacher coordinator Lorna Champion (the school's vice principal) and Project L.O.V.E. coordinator Mary Burke.

Grade One teachers have been eagerly awaiting the return of the volunteers, and the new readers in their classes will really benefit from the opportunities to practice their reading skills-and enjoy hearing a story read by their volunteer afterward!

Parkside School is lucky to have so many enthusiastic volunteers. Once the three Grade One classes have enough reading volunteers, teachers from other grade levels will be able to request reading activities for some of their students. "We want to be able to help the students that need it the most," said volunteer Al Leblanc at the start-up meeting.

Congratulations and good luck to the volunteers at Parkside!

L.O.V.E. on the World Wide Web

Through the good will and assistance of the National Adult Literacy Database (N.A.L.D.), Project L.O.V.E. now has a billboard on the Information Superhighway.

Called a Home Page, the billboard gives information about Project L.O.V.E., the schools which participate, comments from teachers, volunteers and students, and even photographs of some of our volunteers in action, helping students in schools!

Anyone who has access to the World Wide Web can find Project L.O.V.E. at the following address:
http://www.nald.ca/Lovehmpg.htm We are listed in the Prince Edward Island section, with Laubauch Literacy P.E.I. and the P.E.I. Literacy Alliance, which is our sponsoring organization.

What does all this mean? It means that, if there are other communities which would like to organize a similar project to help students in their schools, they can find our Home Page and get more information. They can send us a letter by just clicking on a button.

Where might these other communities be? That is what is so amazing about the World Wide Web-anyone in the whole world with access to the WWW can see our page and find out about us.

Many communities have computer terminals in their public libraries where people without computers of their own can search the WWW for information. Schools and universities are almost all connected to the Web.

Any day now, we may get an inquiry from Timbuktu, or maybe Beijing! And soon after that, Project L.O.V.E. will be spreading around the whole world.

All together now: "All you need is L.O.V.E..........L.O.V.E. is all you need."

Parkdale Volunteers Hold Get-together.

All eight volunteers at Parkdale Elementary School in Charlottetown met recently with their new coordinating teacher, Eunice House.

Parkdale School's coordinator has been Cathy Carmichael, who has coordinated the Parkdale volunteers since the fall of 1994. After Christmas, Cathy accepted a secondment to the Eastern School Board, and she will be working there until the end of the school year.

Parkdale volunteers are now in capable hands of Ms House, who was instrumental in beginning the first pilot Project L.O.V.E. at St. Jean School.

After meeting Ms House, volunteers held a freewheeling discussion about the project, and shared information on what works, and what doesn't.

Volunteer Anne Rankin has a notebook in her red folder and keeps track of which books her students have read. This helps her to remember if they have read a book before, and serves as a reminder for her to ask about their last session and what they remember about the story.

Another hint: Mrs Rankin asks the student if he or she wants to come to the reading club today, or if the student would rather finish what he or she's doing and come next time.

"They don't often choose to miss, but if they do, the teacher can select someone else to come," explained Mrs. Rankin. "This way, I am sure to have an eager participant."

Other volunteers discussed tactics in holding the attention of the youngsters. Ms House reiterated the benefits of individual attention for the students:

"You help them focus on the meaning of the story," she said. "When they are having fun with reading, they will be more likely to read more."

Ms House also stressed the benefits of reading aloud.

"When they're reading silently in class, we don't find out about the problems in understanding or pronunciation," she said. "When they're reading aloud with you, you can catch the errors and help them out."

Get Together and Share What You've Learned!

Project L.O.V.E. coordinator Mary Burke and L.O.V.E. Committee members encourage L.O.V.E. volunteers to hold regular meetings every month or two at their school.

Call the above number to have Mary or other committee members attend. We'd be glad to go! Your coordinating teacher will be able to suggest a meeting space and a time when you can expect to find some peace and quiet around the school.

We would be happy to help with the agenda or find a speaker with useful ideas to share. Give us a call today!

REMEMBER: All schools should have volunteers like you because all students need LOVE! Be sure to tell your friends about Project L.O.V.E.-and help them to get involved! For a copy of "The L.O.V.E. Letter" send an e-mail to burkhorn@isn.net, or write to P.O. Box 325 CORNWALL PEI C0A 1H0.