Launching young minds on the road to writing

Because Mary Ita Dwyer always thought she should give something back to the career and place she loved, Island children are learning to become imaginative and adept writers.

Ms. Dwyer, retired from teaching, six years ago launched 2Rs4Fun, a program now under the Shelter Island Public Library banner and co-funded by the library and Shelter Island Educational Foundation. The program brings mentors together with young writers to unleash the children’s creativity.

For 10 weeks in the fall and again in the spring, 12 children between the ages of 8 and 11 meet with their adult mentors for slightly less than two hours each week for guidance in expressing their thoughts and feelings.

“I really think you can make or break a child early on,” Ms. Dwyer said.

It’s a subject she knows a lot about from her 25 years of teaching at the elementary school level, mostly in the East Williston School District.

Her first team of mentors came from friends here, including some she met at the FIT Center, she said. Ms. Dwyer is always on the hunt for more mentors.

“You have to love literacy, love writing and love children,” she said about those she wants to join her team.

“Creativity reaches deeper into the essence of knowledge when children are free,” Ms. Dwyer said. She leaves it to the school to teach grammar, spelling — all the basics. What she wants the mentors to do is provide support and encouragement to the budding young writers.

Letters go home to children in the third and fourth grades each semester inviting them to join the program. Successful candidates are chosen on a first come, first-served basis, she said. Both the children and their parents have expressed enthusiasm for the program, with “boos” echoing from the children when they were told the program wouldn’t be held one week because of a scheduling conflict.

“I used to not be interested in writing,” Brandon Velasquez wrote in an essay. The program changed his mind “completely” and he credited his mentor, Jean Lawless. “I used to get so much stuff wrong in writing, but now I know what I did wrong,” he wrote. “I didn’t read carefully, I forgot letters and I wrote sloppily.I love 2Rs4Fun and it is a bummer that I can’t come next year.”

Encouraging children to read is also part of the program, Ms. Dwyer said. Mentors suggest age-appropriate books they believe the children will enjoy.

“If you keep the doors open, if you keep the lid off the box, there’s the chance that the things we don’t know can become known, which is what learning is all about,” Ms. Dwyer said, borrowing the idea from English writer Aldous Huxley. When young children are free enough, they can explore and “really burrow into themselves,” she said.

“I don’t want to hear the adult voice” in the writings; “I want to hear the child’s voice,” Ms. Dwyer said.

The children are free to choose their topics and write poetry or prose. Some even elect to illustrate their writings, she said. Each child is given a notebook to write and record their thoughts about the process. It’s one place where you won’t see children using computers, Ms. Dwyer said.

“They come in shy and go out divas,” Ms. Dwyer said.

Children are free to read their writings to their classmates or may elect not to. But each semester, Ms. Dwyer compiles the writings into a booklet with illustrations to show off what the children have created. Ms. Dwyer writes an introduction, but is quick to point out that what’s important in those pages is the children’s work. She credits Stephanie Lebowitz with designing the book and providing its photography.

In her introduction to the 2012 Fall collection, Ms. Dwyer said, “There is no right or wrong way for children to write about their lives, as long as they can come up with their own version, find their own voice.”

The books are filled with poetry and prose, drawings and pieces that reflect their real life experiences as well as ideas stemming from their imaginations. The fall 2012 booklet was dedicated to former Reporter Editor Art Barnett, a long-time program mentor, who died last October.

Ms. Dwyer started the program, but she credits a team of mentors with giving it life. She now works with an editorial board — Roger McKeon, Pat Lutkins and Bliss Morehead — to keep the program growing and changing.

If you’re interested in becoming a mentor, Ms. Dwyer can be reached at 749-1987.