Stanley, students sing praises of reading
When Leotha Stanley was 13 years old, he played the piano at the funeral home on North Avenue in Milwaukee for some extra money.
"I couldn’t wait for the next funeral so I could get my $10," Stanley laughs, looking back at his first music gig.
Since his days at the funeral home, Stanley’s name has become synonymous with music at UW–Madison, not only as a performer but also as a composer.
From starting the UW–Madison Gospel Choir in 1975 to being the music director at the Mount Zion Church for the past 33 years, Stanley has touched the Madison community through music. So when Stanley became the assistant to the director of community relations in the UW–Madison chancellor’s office, he hoped music could also help bridge the university and the community’s youngest members.
Two years ago, Stanley started the Ready Set Read program to get fourth- and fifth-grade Madison-area students excited about literacy through song. The program teaches students eight songs about literacy and life, all composed and written by Stanley.
This semester, 280 students from three area schools are dedicating time in class each week, plus countless playground rehearsal hours, to the program, with all their hard work culminating in a concert at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, April 14, at Madison’s Overture Center.
Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and Bucky Badger are expected to attend. The concert is free and open to the public.
Stanley says the students are the inspiration for all the songs he created. The songs and the program are tailored to the students and their dreams.
"I find out what the students’ interests are, and whatever they say they want to be when they grow up, I talk about the importance of reading no matter what it is," Stanley explains. "Some students want to be hockey players. I say, well you can be a better hockey player if you go to college and play on their team. And in order to get to college, you have to go through this whole thing of reading."
Like one of his songs, "What You Do Today is Your Road Map for the Future," Stanley sees reading as the foundation for educational success in children.
And the music just makes learning and reading fun. Stanley says the beauty of music in the program is that it makes students learn without realizing they are learning.
"That is the thing I love about music. It translates into other parts of their lives," Stanley says. "It is more than literacy, it is life skills."
And the program is more than just songs. Stanley also asks members of the community, from Badger basketball players to the mayor’s aides, to come in and teach the students how reading is important in their lives.
"I ask some of the people I know to come in and say the same thing from a different vantage point," Stanley says. "They just splash the students with literacy and reading."
Volunteer Allison Easter is a music major at UW–Madison and wanted to share her love of music and education with the students.
"I wish I would have had a program like this when I went to elementary school," Easter says. "To reach out to students and encourage them to read through music is such a fresh take on getting students to want to read. I wanted to serve as a positive role model for the students and show them that it is possible for each and every one of them to get to where I and all of the other volunteers are."
And the best part of the program is that students love it. According to Stanley, everyone from playground monitors to bus drivers to parents has told him students are practicing the songs wherever they go, to the point where many adults are even singing the songs.
"Their responses have been so positive that when I see [the students] out in public and they are with their parents, they just shine. They say, ‘That man was at our school, mommy. We had some fun in the class,’" Stanley says. "I get a lot of responses from the parents that it was the best program they have ever seen — that it is not just a fun program, but an educational program."
Ready Set Read doesn’t just stop after the program ends. Many of the students involved are part of the Pre-College Enrichment Opportunity Program for Learning (PEOPLE) Prep, which is designed to support low-income Madison-area students through their primary and secondary educational goals. Ready Set Read gives many students access to opportunities they wouldn’t normally have.
"It is a big, big deal for them. Some people never go into the Overture Center. They pass by it all the time but never enter," Stanley says. "It is an important place of arts that everyone should have access. The Ready Set Read program not only gives them that access but allows them to be on stage."
