Olympian Kristi Yamaguchi’s reading program skates smoothly through pandemic

Good planning can handle just about any problem. Even a pandemic.

That’s what Kristi Yamaguchi, the former Olympic figure skating champion and reading advocate, discovered over the past two years with her Always Dream literacy program, which has been serving underprivileged children in several Hawaii public schools for the last eight years. The program, which underwent an upgrade about three years ago, provides tablets and Wi-Fi hot spots, access to a huge digital library of children’s books, a reading coach to help families and “touch points” throughout the year to check up on their children’s progress. The aim is to get youngsters and their elders reading together at least three times a week for at least 10 to 15 minutes at a time.

“I think because we really designed our 2.0 program and implemented that before the pandemic even hit, we were already in the home environment,” said Yamaguchi, who visited Hawaii late last month to check in with schools using the program.

“The only difference was that our touch points were virtual rather than in person, but we did find that because they were virtual, we had greater attendance,” she said with a laugh.

Her program is now in 16 classrooms in six Hawaii schools. Thirteen are kindergarten classes, but for the first time, pre-kindergartners are also enrolled, with three classes taking part.

“We’re really excited, because with the pre-K now, we’ll be able to see these kids have the program for two years in a row, and hopefully see a correlation with how strong their reading habits at home are,” she said.

Getting kids started with reading at the pre-K level also addresses an important period in a child’s development, she said.

“There’s a lot of support for kids (ages) 0-3 in the communities, and then obviously you start kindergarten and beyond,” she said, “but for some reason, there tends to be a gap for those 4-year-olds. This will be a nice way to have a continuum of support.”

For families who aren’t part of the Always Dream program, Yamaguchi suggests going to its website, alwaysdream.org, and click on the Resources > Parent Resources Library button. “We have some great reading strategies and … links to other sites that support family engagement at home,” she said.

Terrie Togafau, a reading consultant who serves as local book coach for Yamaguchi’s program, said she frequently gets questions from parents trying to help their children read. “Sometimes I get parents asking me, ‘What do you want me exactly to do when I’m reading with my child?’ I tell them there are different strategies, like ‘picture walking’ (looking first at the pictures in a storybook to familiarize the child with the story before reading the story) or 20 questions, that kind of thing.”

Reading material for the Always Dream program comes from the online library Epic! Togafau said any family can access the library, which has more than 40,000 titles for children 12 and under. “They can use it on their phones, they can use it on their own iPads,” she said.

Epic! is accessible at getepic.com. A free membership gives readers access to one book a day; paid subscriptions allow unlimited access for $9.99 a month.

Marc Kawahara, principal of Kalihi Kai Elementary School, has been pleased to have the Always Dream program at his school, especially because 80% of the students are “English learners,” meaning they are students whose first language is not English and who are not at grade level in English.

“Research has shown that if a student is not reading on grade level by grade 3, they almost never catch up,” he said. “Having them get a jump start with this program with our preschoolers and our kindergartners really helps, because oftentimes many of our students are coming in already behind schedule.”

Yamaguchi, who has ancestral ties to Hawaii and still has family friends here, doesn’t do much skating these days, but she is looking forward to the Olympics in February. She still remembers her last ice show here, in which Tony Award-winner Lea Salonga sang to the skaters’ routines.

“That was one of the top things on a bucket list to check off,” she said. “It’s just such a perfect fit of arts coming together.”