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By Michael Mroziak
BTPM
A Western New Yorker who has created a multimedia educational program is using it to encourage reading and grow literacy among Niagara Falls public school students.
Joey Hamilton performed his program, Checkers the Inventor: Reading Road Trip, before students Tuesday morning at Harry F. Abate Elementary School. He’ll next appear Saturday at 1:30 p.m. in the Niagara Falls Public Library Main Street branch, where families can meet him and learn about the program.
Mayor Robert Restaino says Hamilton recently approached him to ask how his program might help Niagara Falls students. The latter made his pitch, presented some videos to demonstrate his program, and the mayor was impressed.
“I know that there are a variety of programs that our district already deploys to assist our students in reading, but when I started to see this particular approach, my immediate call was to the superintendent to arrange for an introduction and a meeting for this young man to come ahead and explain what he thought his program could do for the young students in our district,” Restaino said.
Hamilton, a Lancaster resident, explained his father attended Niagara University and recommended he introduce his program to Niagara Falls Public Schools. His character, Checkers the Inventor, performs tricks on stage with a variety of odd gadgets, but the aim of his performance is to attract kids to books, and to their local libraries.
“It's a one two punch, where they go see the program, we hype them up for a cool event where they can come and actually be in a library. It's also sort of like the pied piper, where, you know, we're bringing people back to the library, creating a positive experience, and then continuing that,” Hamilton said.
After his performance for the students, Hamilton demonstrated some of his stage tricks to local news media.
Abate Elementary is located next door to the city’s main library branch, a convenient opportunity to visit a library. Educators say reading and good literacy are the most important fundamentals in a young child’s learning.
“Literacy is really the foundation of everything you do,” said assistant principal Leah Baldassare. “Even in math. Math, sometimes, there's more reading involved in it than there's actual computation. So, literacy is the key and the baseline for everything that a child is going to need in order to be successful on their journey later on in life.”
Local health officials also see the benefit of getting children to read. Dr. Fauzia Khan, Niagara County’s public health director, says when parents read to children, they give them tools to understand education, ask informed questions, and even evaluate their choices, which can help them develop into their teens and young adulthoods.
“One of our programs is working very closely with pediatrician offices and libraries. We have launched a little lending library, and that is placed in our partners’ provider offices,” Khan said. “The expectation is that parents, while they are waiting, they read to the children again. That increased the parent child bonding, and they can take those books home.”
For generations, some children’s television shows have serve to educate young viewers, from Sesame Street, to the Electric Company, to Reading Rainbow, and others. But many of those shows also encouraged kids to take time away from the screens and pick up a book.
Hamilton’s strategy is similar. His performances are high-energy, but his endgame is to get children interested in reading.
“It sounds so simple to say, but what are specific ways that you can make books appear more imaginative and something that you're going to want to be excited about?” he pondered. “For me… I'm silly in the performance. It's fun, but I still want to bring out that inspirational figure. I want to be somebody that they can look up to, that they see the things that I've done and the things that I look forward to accomplishing in the future, and they want to take it upon themselves to go off and read and to learn.”
