Rotary Club of Northlakes Toukley In Touch March 2014 | Page 4

RI President Message

But a few months ago, on a visit to a Rotary project
in Decatur, Ala., I walked into a first-grade classroom
and was asked if I would read a book to a class of sixyear-olds. Naturally, I was happy to oblige. I sat
down, opened the book they had chosen, and started
reading to about 30 little kids – upside down, just the
way I did it back in second grade.

In a sense, I was doing exactly what I'd learned to do
more than half a century earlier. But as an adult, and
especially as a Rotarian, I saw that experience in a
different way. I was reading to a group of children
who were well on their way to literacy themselves.
We were sitting in their classroom, in a school where
Rotarians came every week to read one-on-one with
children who needed a little extra help.
There wasn't any question that every child in that
room would grow up to be a literate adult. And all of
them took that completely for granted – as they took

Rotary International President

it for granted that adults would care enough to read

Ron D. Burton

them a book while showing them the pictures, even if
that meant reading upside down.

MARCH 2014
Growing up in Duncan, Okla., USA, I took it for

We all know that millions of children all over the

granted that everyone could read. In my own elemen-

world aren't that lucky. That's why we make basic

tary school, not only were we expected to be reading

education and literacy a priority in our Rotary ser-

by the age of seven or eight, we were expected to

vice. As we mark Literacy Month in Rotary, we re-

read upside do ݸ