Submitted

The First Church of Christ in Unionville, CT donated well over 100 children’s books to the West Hartford Adult Education Program “English for Families & Futures (EFF)” class in September.

The West Hartford Adult Education program provides adults classes and services to improve English (ESL), improve basic skills, earn a high school diploma, or attain citizenship.

The English for Families & Futures class is grant based, requiring class faculty to purchase classroom necessities with federal grant funds. 

“Donations allow us to use the funds for other valuable classroom material,” said Caren Dickman, program facilitator of Adult Education for WHPS.

The books will help EFF parents build their child’s language and literacy skills by reading to them at home.

Madelyn Rivard built the bookshelves and stocked them with books in 2024, as part of her effort to become an Eagle Scout. She worked in cooperation with Dawn Hambrecht, West Hartford Adult Education’s EFF Lead Teacher.

Susan Keenan, a church volunteer, was so impressed when she learned about the EFF book project that she led a book collection to help sustain the project. 

The EFF class is a partnership between West Hartford’s Adult Education Program and the Bridge Family Center. 

Dawn Hambrecht describes the program as one in which parents study English while their children participate in preschool play. They join together for activities that promote English, good parenting, literacy, and school readiness. 

Some of the families have been in the U.S. for just a few weeks when they join the program, but Hambrecht said for all, early literacy is so important.

“Children who are read to at least three times a week are almost twice as likely to score in the top 25% in reading compared to children who are not read to,” said Hambrecht.”By the age of two, children who are read to regularly will display greater language comprehension, larger vocabularies, and higher cognitive skills than their unread-to peers.” 

“Students in our ESL Program come from countries all over the world, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Columbia, Taiwan, Tibet and Ukraine. So many come with young children who desperately need this program to become successful in this country,” said Shelley Solomon, Director of the town’s Adult ESL Program

The West Hartford Adult Education program offers a variety of language proficiency classes, ranging from beginner to advanced. Meeting two to three times per week, the program offers free childcare for ages 4-10 for evening classes.

Classes are available for those who live in West Hartford, work in West Hartford, or have children enrolled in West Hartford Public Schools.

Those who are interested in the Adult Education program can complete the registration form, can visit the West Hartford Adult Education website, or can call 860-561-6900 for all ESL class related questions.

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