Refugee families face a life in a completely new culture and the prospect of building their lives from scratch. For families who don’t speak English, the transition is even more difficult.
For some of these families, a recent donation of interactive English learning materials to Catholic Charities, Diocese of Camden’s Refugee School Impact Program will give families the opportunity to face one particular challenge together: that of learning to read English.
The materials, valued at nearly $132,000, include game boards and activity books that the program plans to give to refugee families so that parents and children can play and learn together.
“A lot of times the parents feel like they can’t help their child learn English,” said Priscilla Adams, refugee academic success coordinator for Catholic Charities. “But with these materials they can learn together and help each other. Both the parents and the children can shine.”
When families arrive in the U.S., Catholic Charities’ Refugee and Immigration Services program provides a range of services, particularly during their intensive first three months in the U.S., and these include helping children enroll in school and offering English as a Second Language (ESL) classes to parents during the day.
The ESL classes are offered to refugees in Catholic Charities’ program five days a week, and last year the classes included 87 students. The majority of refugee children are enrolled in schools throughout Camden and Gloucester counties.
Both parents and children can practice the phonics skills they learn in class together using the donated materials, said donor Robert Petrillo, a parishioner at St. Rose of Lima parish.
“These materials have been used in every possible setting. They’re geared toward primary level reading skills, which is usually second or third grade, but they’ve been used for adults, for teenagers, in ESL classes; they’re not childish in nature so anyone can use them,” Petrillo said.
His company, Reading Sparkers, operated with co-owner and donor Donald Edwards, produced the phonics-based educational materials for 25 years. They have been used in over 4,000 schools covering nearly every state nationwide. Petrillo said he used the materials, which can be either supplemental resources or a self-contained reading curriculum, to teach his own children to read.
“Phonics is very important for children learning English as a second language because they need to understand the phonetics of the language, the vowel and consonant sounds,” said Petrillo, who is now the supervisor of curriculum for language arts grades 6 through 12 in Washington Township Public Schools and a reading consultant.
The materials include nearly 1,500 phonics skills game boards with pieces and dice, over 2,000 coloring book readers that reinforce the phonics skills learned through the games, comprehension books and teachers’ guides. Petrillo has been looking for a worthy cause to donate the surplus materials since the company closed in 2013, he said.
“These are good materials and I couldn’t just throw them away,” he said. “I wanted to give them to kids and adults that could really use them.”
The materials will go into the homes of refugee families settled by Catholic Charities throughout southern New Jersey who can use them to improve their English skills as a family. They will also be donated to local schools where refugee students are enrolled and used in Catholic Charities’ ESL classes. He will give a training to families and teachers from the ESL classes and local schools on how to use the materials in coming weeks.
Catholic Charities’ Refugee Resettlement Program resettles approximately 100 refugees each year from all over the world. The agency is the only refugee resettlement services provider in the region. The program provides assistance securing affordable housing, employment services, long-term medical case management, school support for refugee children, and immigration legal services, in addition to enrichment services, such as ESL classes, community gardens and a bicycle program.
For more about the program, go to CatholicCharitiesCamden.org/Refugee-Immigration
Written by Joanna Gardner