Being a volunteer in a Leading to Reading Program is also a benefit not only to the child or person receiving the help, it is also a benefit to the volunteer.

You discover many ways in which different individuals learn. Sometimes it is just by accident that you discover a different type of learning technique.

We learn to read by phonetics, sight, knowing meanings of words only sometimes we haven't seen it in print, so when we read a passage and someone tells us the meaning we know the word right away.

You also learn to read books you haven't even read nor would not normally read because in order to see if the person is reading the book at home, you also need to read it. There are so many excellent books for children of all ages and you learn that our speech patterns have changed in the written word. What made sense once now doesn't make sense until you discover a way of telling the story in the common language. Example Old English Shakespeare to reinventing Romeo and Juliet using words today as you read the old passages. It is so lyrical.

Most important is that it is about the individual who requires our utmost attention and that we are listening to everything they say. Ah! that "New Earth" online class I took for 10 weeks, and that's what volunteering is all about. "Treating others with respect and the attention they need at the time."