BIRMINGHAM, Al.
Thursday afternoons are a treat for teacher Amy Stubbs' fourth-grade class at Huffman Academy. That's when Birmingham police officer Montague Minnifield arrives with a big bag of books.
Minnifield is among 40 Birmingham Police Department employees who are volunteering their time to help children in Birmingham schools improve their reading skills.
Minnifield and his colleagues -- most are police officers, but a few work in the city jail or in administration -- are working through a program run by Better Basics, a nonprofit children's literacy organization, said Sherri Blank, the nonprofit's director of development and public relations.
The Motivators of Reading Enrichment, or MORE, program encourages fourth-graders to read for pleasure by providing each classroom with a library of 55 age-appropriate books. Teachers allow students up to 30 minutes a day to read books in the MORE collection, and once a week, volunteers such as Minnifield go to their assigned classrooms to help the children with their reading.
For each book they read, students complete a short report that tests their reading comprehension. The volunteers grade the reports, and readers who get at least 7 out of 10 questions right get to pick a new book to take home for their personal collection.
They earn other rewards as they achieve reading milestones, which act as good motivators, Stubbs said. Those who complete five books earn a Better Basics T-shirt. They get a wristband for reading 10, a blue ribbon for 15 and a water bottle for 20.
"It will pull in reluctant readers," Stubbs said.
If students in the class are lagging behind on their reading, Minnifield said he encourages them to help each other out.
As Minnifield called out the names of children who qualified to pick out a book to take home last week, their classmates gave them a round of applause.
Nine-year-old Antoine Williams grinned as he returned to his desk with "Dr. Brad has Gone Mad" and "Titanic" -- books he planned to read over Thanksgiving break. The A honor roll student, whose father is a police officer in Atlanta, said he likes having Minnifield work with his class. "He reminds me of my dad," Antoine said.
Minnifield, a member of the police department's SWAT unit, said he enjoys working with the youngsters. They want to know about his job and the equipment he carries.
"They want to see the Taser, the night stick, the flashlight (ours is a lot brighter), everything that's nonlethal," Minnifield said.
The MORE program yields results, Stubbs said. It helps students improve grades and helps them become better readers.
"There's a huge difference between children who read for pleasure and those who don't," she said. "Better reading helps with other classes, like science."
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